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.'.V.

The Indian Captivity
of O. M. Spencer

i ~l

-4

Classics

The Indian Captivity
/O.M. Spencer

\t

FORT WASHTNGTON IN 179O

TA« Statt Historical Society of Wisconsin

With Frontispiece and Map

•

R. R, DONNELLEY & SONS COMPANY
CHRISTMAS, MCMXVII

I OQ\

.

Classics

The Indian Captivity
0/O.M. Spencer

\%

EDITED BY

MILO MILTON QUAIFE

Superintendent of
The Stale Historical Society of Wisconsin

With Frontispiece and Map

Haftesibc press,
R. R. DONNELLEY & SONS COMPANY
CHRISTMAS, MCMXVII

S7

* * < I

preface

series of The Lakeside Classics, of
which this is the fifteenth volume, occu
pies an unique position in the history
of publishing. The original purpose of publi
cation can best be expressed by quoting the
following extract from the introduction of
the first volume, a reprint of "The Autobiog
raphy of Benjamin Franklin. "

"This little volume goes forth as a modest
protest against the present craze for so-called
'editions de luxe' — books printed in unread
able type on hand-made paper, on hand
presses, and sold at prices prohibitory to all
except the rich. ... In opposition, this vol
ume stands for the machine-made book. Its
paper, its typesetting, its presswork, and its
binding are all products of the very latest
labor-saving machinery. It aims to be read
able rather than eccentric; plain rather than
decorative; tasteful rather than unique; useful
rather than useless ; withal to hold to the essence
of the art of the old masters of book-making,
and not to copy the mechanical shortcomings
which they, themselves, strove so hard to
overcome."

This book was not for sale, but was dis
tributed gratuitously among the friends and

v 965817

' preface

patrons of The Lakeside Press. By chance,
the "Franklin" was ready for distribution
about the Christmas season, and it was made
the bearer of the Christmas good wishes of
The Press. The Publishers did not plan to
establish a sustained series issued annually,
but thought that they would occasionally add
to the series as a book or manuscript of un
usual interest, and not readily obtainable by
the public, presented itself.

But the first volume was received so enthu
siastically that it was followed by another the
next Christmas, and thus was established the
custom of the Publishers sending to their
friends and patrons their Yuletide felicitations
each season in the form of a volume of The
Lakeside Classics.

With the fifth volume, the original purpose
of the series was somewhat changed, as the
books ceased to be entirely a machine product.
In that year was established at The Lakeside
Press an apprenticeship school and a compre
hensive system of training the future workmen
of The Press. The typesetting of the volume
for that year was done in the School by boys
in the first few months of their training, and
the typesetting of all subsequent volumes has
been the work of the younger apprentices. As
the scope of the School widened, the press-
work and binding also were produced by the
older boys, so that for several years the vol
ume has been completely the product of the

vi

preface

apprentices. The fact that the workmanship
of these little books has maintained the high
standard of The Press may be regarded as
testimony to the ideals and accomplishment of
the School.

The School for Apprentices of The Lake
side Press is a pioneer in vocational education
in the printing industry and has obtained an
international reputation. Boys are appren
ticed as they graduate from grammar school;
the first two years they spend half their time
in the schoolroom and half in the factory.
The school work includes academic as well
as trade instruction. The following five years
they work full time in the factory, with the
exception of four hours a week during which
they continue to receive academic and trade
instruction in the School. Three classes have
now finished their full apprenticeship, and as
this volume goes to press there are more than
fifty graduates, all of whom are workmen of
more than usual skill and efficiency, through
out the various departments.

It has been the aim of the Publishers to
choose for these volumes material which is
distinctly American. With the publication
of the Autobiography of Gurdon S. Hubbard
was started a series of memoirs and sketches
covering the history of Chicago, from the
days of the trading post down to the Chicago
Fire of 1871; and so popular have been these
historical notes that with last year's volume

vii

the field was extended to include the early his
tory of the contiguous Northwest.

This year's volume is one of the many
accounts written by early settlers who were
taken and held in captivity by the Indians
during the first half of the last century. Un
fortunately, most of these accounts were writ
ten by persons of little education and no lit
erary ability and make poor reading. But
Mr. Spencer, the author of this volume, be
came a Methodist minister and later the edi
tor of a religious weekly, and was thus able
to bring a developed ability in writing to the
telling of his boyhood experiences. While
this narrative has the old-fashioned and rather
delightful Sunday-school flavor of his profes
sion and his time, it is told in a straightfor
ward and honest fashion, and conveys to the
reader a much truer picture of the habits and
character of the Indians of Ohio than many
other more imaginative and bloodcurdling tales.

The Publishers are again under obligation
to Dr. Milo Milton Quaife for discovering the
subject matter and for editing it. With this
little volume again come the Christmas Good
Wishes of

THE PUBLISHERS.

Vlll

f (gtotfcal gitttrotiurtfott

ArEAR ago in The Lakeside Classics was
published the life narrative of the am
bitious but unfortunate Sauk chieftain,
Black Hawk, who dominated the last Indian
war in the Old Northwest. In attempting to
evaluate the narrative the editor ascribed to it
a two-fold historical significance. First, as a
valuable source of information concerning the
events with which it immediately deals; sec
ond, and of more importance, as presenting the
viewpoint and state of mind of a typical rep
resentative of the red race upon the subject of
its four-century conflict with the white man
for the possession of the North American con
tinent. The present volume deals with one
aspect of the same struggle and, like its prede
cessor, possesses a two-fold significance. For
the immediate events with which it deals it is
a valuable source of historical information; it
constitutes, moreover, a skillful presentation of
a concrete instance of a class of events on the
frontier which inspired the borderers with a deep
and abiding loathing for their red neighbors.

When each of two races becomes imbued
with the idea that it is suffering grievous
wrongs at the hands of the other, as a conse
quence of which a deep-seated hatred and fear

ix

JIHgtorical

is conceived, the outcome, sooner or later, is
certain — war to the knife to determine by an
application of the law of might the question
of right. Black Hawk's Autobiography makes
abundantly clear the red man's reason for
hating his white rival. The present narrative,
far less comprehensive than Black Hawk's,
merely relates the story of the Indian captivity
of a single white child. From this viewpoint
alone it would not now, after the lapse of a
century and a quarter, be worth reprinting.
But the reader who is gifted with some knowl
edge of life and a fair endowment of imagina
tion will see in it much more than the story of
the fortunes of youthful Oliver Spencer. In
it, as in a mirror, he will see the tremendous
drama of the westward march of white America
across the continent; the reduction of the
wilderness from a home for wild beasts and
savage men to the smiling abode of a peaceful
civilization; the grim tenacity with which the
untutored savage defended his native forest
against the white flood slowly, but none the
less surely, rolling on to engulf him; the play
of human nature, the vicissitudes of human
tragedy, the conflict of elemental forces; — all
these things lie within the covers of the book
for him who has the gift to perceive them.

To orient ourselves into the historical sur
roundings of Spencer's narrative we must
make a brief survey of the concluding phase
of the American Revolution. That famous

JS^torical

struggle is commonly supposed to have ended
with the year 1/83. There was, however, a
long aftermath, chiefly relating to the region
west of the Alleghenies, so that in the West
the Revolution may fairly be said to have ended
with the conclusion of the Indian wars in 1795
and the transfer a year later of the British posts
to American control.

The reasons for this prolongation of the
Revolution in the West were numerous and
complex. Since our present concern is only
with a certain aspect of that struggle it will
suffice to take note of the relations between
the American people and the Indian tribes in
habiting the region north and west of the
Ohio River. By the Treaty of Paris in 1783
the sovereignty of the United States to all the
territory bounded by a line drawn through the
middle of the Great Lakes and, on the west,
the Mississippi River, was recognized. In the
making of this treaty the tribes of American
Indians had no voice. Yet during the Rev
olutionary War, Great Britain had actively in
stigated these tribes to join with her in waging
war on the American settlers of western
Pennsylvania and Virginia (the latter state
then including modern West Virginia and
Kentucky). The red man recognized no legal
right on the part of Great Britain to cede their
territory; on the contrary, her action in making
peace with their joint enemy was regarded as
a base desertion. As against civilized powers

xi

the new United States, by the treaty of 1783,
acquired a perfect title to the territory lying
east of the Mississippi and south of the Great
Lakes; as against the red inhabitants of this
vast region the American title had still to be
established.

The task was immensely complicated by the
presence of British sovereignty north of the
Lakes and by certain relations between Great
Britain and the new nation growing out of the
treaty of 1/83. There was naturally much
irritation between the two newly separated
branches of the English race. Neither nation
sought to perform with entire fidelity the obli
gations it had assumed in the treaty of peace.
Mutual recrimination over disregard of treaty
rights led, before many years, to a condition
which threatened a new war between England
and America. Year after year the former
declined to give up the northwestern posts,
from which she had promised in 1783 to with
draw her armies " with all convenient speed. "
Her real reasons for this manifest infraction of
treaty obligations were long withheld or dis
sembled. They are now recognized to have
been due at first to a policy of opportunism;
but at length to a natural desire to retain for
Canada control of the fur trade of the interior;
and as a means to this end to erect, from the
vast region between the Ohio and the Lakes,
a permanent Indian barrier state, which would
forever stand as a buffer between the new

xii

J^igtorical ^ntrotmction

American nation and Canada, and would insure
to the latter domination over the tribes of the
interior, and therewith the control of the
Indian trade.

Thus, when the new American nation moved
forward to the possession of its trans-Ohio
territory it encountered the resistance not
alone of the western tribes, but of these tribes
backed by the moral, and to a certain extent the
material, support of Great Britain. The gov
ernment of the United States was weakened,
too, by internal conditions. The Confederation
was but a shadow, which grew steadily thinner
until it completely dissolved about the year
1788. The transition to the new national
government of the United States was effected
in 1789, but it came into being burdened with
debt, and justly fearful, in view of existing
conditions, of speaking and acting boldly on
behalf of the nation's interests.

The people, as contrasted with the govern
ment, manifested no such timidity in taking
possession of their western inheritance. From
the beginnings of colonization in Massachu
setts and Virginia until the last step in the
march across the continent, the zeal of the
American people for westward expansion com
monly outran that of the government. So, in
the period under consideration, with the close
of the Revolution the tide of white settlement,
hitherto confined in the main to the south side
of the Ohio, began to overflow its barrier. The
xiii

expiring government of the Confederation
responded to the desire of the people by pro
viding, in the famous Ordinance of 1787, for
civil government and for the ultimate organiza
tion of states in the Northwest Territory. In
the same year, Congress sold to the Ohio Com
pany five million acres of land, and in 1788 the
company formally inaugurated its colonization
enterprise by founding Marietta at the mouth
of the Muskingum.

Therewith the American conquest of the
Indian Northwest may be said fairly to have
begun. The Revolution, a political success
for the Americans, had entailed widespread
economic disaster upon the colonists. Soldiers
discharged from the armies, business men who
had met with financial ruin, and in general all
who found the conditions of life difficult in
a time of general economic prostration, were
eager for westward migration. Quickly on
the heels of the Ohio Company of New Eng-
landers and its settlement at the mouth of the
Muskingum, came the formation of an associa
tion of New Jersey men for the exploitation of
the tract of land between the two Miami rivers.
In the spring of 1786, Benjamin Stites, formerly
from New Jersey but then a resident of Red
stone, Pennsylvania, engaged in a trading ven
ture down the Ohio. At Limestone (now
Maysville), Kentucky, he joined as volunteer
a party of settlers in pursuit of a band of
Indian marauders from across the Ohio. The
xiv

pursuit, as commonly in such cases, failed of
its immediate object, but it afforded Stites an
opportunity to view the country between the
Big and Little Miamis. By reason of the fact
that it formed a part of the great highway
taken by the rival war and raiding parties pass
ing between the Kentucky settlements south
of the Ohio and the Indian country north of
that stream this region had come to be known
as the "Miami slaughter house." Probably for
this reason it had been carefully shunned by
the numerous parties of settlers who had de
scended the Ohio in earlier years. Captivated
by its charm and the evidences of its natural
richness, Stites hastened to the East, bent on
obtaining possession of "the slaughter house "
region and there founding a colony.

In New York, Stites encountered a New
Jersey congressman, John Cleves Symmes, who
became actively interested in his project. A
visit to the Ohio country, made the following
year, convinced Symmes of the correctness of
Stites' description of the tract in question.
Under Symmes' leadership an association of
twenty-five influential New Jersey men was
formed to conduct the projected enterprise,
and Congress was petitioned for an extensive
grant of land. Without waiting for the action
of Congress, Symmes proceeded to dispose of
tracts of land to purchasers and prospective
settlers, and in general to put the colonizing
enterprise into execution. Because of his un-

XV

pgtorical

business-like procedure much confusion and
trouble resulted, but into this we need not enter
here. To Stites, Symmes conveyed ten thou
sand acres, to Mathias Denman a section of
land opposite the mouth of Licking River, while
for himself he reserved, as the site for a pro
posed metropolis, an extensive tract at the
confluence of the Big Miami with the Ohio.

From these several projects three aspiring
communities sprang at about the same time.
Stites, first in the field, founded in November,
1788, the town of Columbia at the mouth of
the Little Miami. A few weeks later Denman's
project assumed visible form in the platting on
his section of land of a town to which the
Kentucky pedagogue, John Filson, gave the
hybrid name Losantiville, signifying the town
opposite the mouth of the Licking. A year
or so later, Governor St. Clair quietly but
firmly replaced the name Losantiville with the
permanent title of Cincinnati. Slightly later
than its rivals, Symmes1 town was laid out at
North Bend, now chiefly noted as the home
and burial place of William Henry Harrison.
Thus three towns, each expecting to become
the future metropolis of the Ohio Valley, were
started during the winter of 1789-90 in the
"Miami slaughter house. " Of the three, Cin
cinnati alone, midway both in point of geog
raphy and of chronology between its rivals, was
destined to realize its founders' ambitious
hopes. With the fortunes of North Bend we

xvi

JS^torical

need not concern ourselves. Columbia, per
haps the most promising of all three, soon
proved unable to hold its own with Cincinnati,
its down-river neighbor. It lingered long as a
village, until finally, in 1873, it was absorbed as
a suburb by its erstwhile rival.

The most prominent settler of Columbia was
Colonel Oliver Spencer, father of our narrator.
Colonel Spencer was not only of the best Eng
lish descent, but, a point of greater importance,
he was entirely worthy of his ancestry. A
native of Connecticut, he removed at an early
age to Elizabethtown, New Jersey, where he
married the daughter of Robert Ogden. The
wife, like her husband, had excellent family
connections, the Ogden family of New Jersey
numbering a bishop, a chief justice, three
judges, a general, and five colonels, besides
numerous other worthies of lesser magnitude.
Colonel Spencer engaged in the tannery busi
ness with his father-in-law and was rapidly
acquiring wealth when the Revolution came to
alter his whole future course of life. Of his
military service the son speaks briefly. We
need note in this connection only that while he
served with credit throughout the war, rising
to the rank of colonel in the continental service,
he found himself at its close a ruined man, his
capital dissipated, and his home and tannery
(the latter one of the largest in America) gut
ted. Under such circumstances he turned a
ready ear to the project for colonization on the
xvii

Ohio, with the prospect it held out to men of
energy of beginning life anew under more favor
able circumstances than the settled East could
offer. Cincinnatians still pride themselves on
the high character of their forbears. To
none can they point with more reason for pride
than to the father of our narrator. Writing
to Symmes on May 16, 1789, of Spencer's
impending trip to view the Miami country,
Jonathan Dayton dwelt upon the importance
to their project of producing upon him a favor
able impression, saying that there was not
a person in New Jersey who could influence
more settlers to follow him, and that many who
were contemplating removal to the West were
awaiting his report before deciding the momen
tous matter.

The narrative of the son apprises us of the
outcome of the journey. Colonel Spencer,
like Stites before him, was charmed with the
aspect of the country, and at once entered into
arrangements for removing his family thither.
Accordingly in October, 1790, the toilsome
journey was begun, at first in wagons over the
famous Pennsylvania Road, then by flatboat
down the Youghiogheny and the Ohio to Co
lumbia. The conditions of life in the new
settlement, and in the neighboring Cincinnati
in the year 1791 are sufficiently indicated by
our narrative. In a word, the settlers' task of
developing in the wilderness an abode of civi
lization was interrupted only by the ever present
xviii

menace of Indian foray and massacre. With
commendable promptness the new United
States government took measures for the pro
tection of the Miami settlements by establishing,
in the summer of 1789, a post at Cincinnati.
To it the name of Washington was given, and
for a few years it constituted the chief military
center of the United States. One might sup
pose that such an establishment in their midst
would have rendered the settlers immune from
Indian attack. For several years, however,
life in the "Miami slaughter house" was suffi
ciently thrilling to satisfy even the most adven
turous spirit, and many tales aside from those
recorded by Spencer have come down to us of
Indian attacks and slaughtering, not only at
Columbia and North Bend, but in the very
environs of Cincinnati itself. At the end of
six months of life under such circumstances oc
curred the abduction of youthful Oliver Spen
cer, which, with the ensuing captivity, furnishes
the principal theme of our narrative.

Before turning to the narrative itself, some
notice may be taken of the manner in which
the red men of the Northwest met the menace
of the white advance, and precipitated both the
first and the greatest Indian war in which the
United States ever engaged. Although the rec
ord of our Indian wars constitutes on the
whole a sorry story, we need not apologize for
the justice of our cause in the first of the long
series. If ever in history a war was unavoid-

xix

^ntro&uction

able this one may fairly be so regarded. Ever
since the close of the Revolution intermittent
raiding and murdering had occurred. Early in
1790 the hovering war cloud burst in earnest,
the natives forcing the issue by intercepting
and plundering the boats conveying settlers
down the Ohio. In July, Governor St. Clair
called upon Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Vir
ginia for military assistance and set in motion
his own forces. The main blow was directed
from Fort Washington against Miamitown, on
the site of the modern Fort Wayne. In Octo
ber, General Harmar attacked the place with
a force of some fourteen hundred men. The In
dians drew back before the blow and their vil
lages were destroyed. Harmar's main army was
not engaged, but two considerable detachments
from it waged bloody and unsuccessful conflicts
with the red men. The army returned to Fort
Washington, having lost in killed and wounded
nearly three hundred men. At the best it had
achieved a barren victory; at the worst a
"mortifying failure. " It was as though a blow
had been dealt a nest of hornets. The Indians,
momentarily stunned, were not cowed but only
rendered the more furious.

Harmar had penetrated to the very center
of Indian power. The natives promptly coun
tered by massacring the settlers at Big Bottom
near Marietta, on the night of January 2, 1791.
Proffers of peace to the red men proving un
availing, the American government prepared

XX

for a second invasion of the Indian country to
overawe the tribes and to establish in their
midst, at the forks of the Maumee, a perma
nent fortress. In the autumn of 1791, General
St. Clair set forth from Fort Washington on
this mission, but instead of accomplishing it
he led his army to the most terrible defeat in
American military annals. The Indians were
jubilant over the destruction of the American
army. But, although they did not realize it,
St. Clair's disaster had in no wise shaken the
real military power of the United States; and
the government, while still proffering the olive
branch, set steadily about the task of organizing
a new army which should succeed where those
of Harmar and St. Clair had failed. Almost
three years of preparation, under the vigor
ous leadership of General Wayne, ensued. At
length, in the summer of 1794, his army
set forth from Fort Washington to follow the
track, but not to repeat the example, of its
predecessors. On the site of the slaughter of
St. Glair's army, Wayne built Fort Recovery;
at the mouth of the Auglaize, where the
weary months of Spencer's captivity were
passed, the fortress grimly named Defiance
was erected; at the Fallen Timbers on August
20, 1794, the power of the northwestern tribes
was completely broken; at Miamitown, which
Harmar had raided and St. Clair had vainly
essayed to reach, another fort was built and the
conqueror's name was permanently attached

xxi

pgtorical ffintrotiucticm

to the spot; finally, in council at Greenville
in 1795, the tribesmen formally acknowledged
Wayne as their conqueror and ceded to the
United States the extensive tract covering,
roughly speaking, the southern and eastern
half of Ohio.

Thus peace was brought to the troubled
frontier. To complete the work of Wayne's
legion, in 1795 the Jay treaty with England
was concluded, as the result of which Detroit
and the other British frontier forts were sur
rendered to the United States in 1796. The
American conquest of the Northwest, though
far from completed, was now assured; and in
general the political conditions which prevailed
down to the outbreak of the War of 1812 were
established.

To complete this summary view it remains
to take some note of our author and his narra
tive. Of the author's later career I have
learned but little. Investigation at Cincinnati
would doubtless reveal much, but the oppor
tunity for this has not been afforded me. The
facts at hand, however, will sufficiently answer
our purpose. Born in New Jersey about the
year 1780, Spencer came west with his father,
and Cincinnati became his permanent home.
Readers of his narrative need not be informed
that he became a preacher and that he learned
to wield a facile pen. The Cincinnati Directory
for 1819 lists him as president of two organ
izations, the American Bible Society and the
xxii

I^igtorical ^ntrotwction

Miami Exporting Company. Six years later
the directory simply enters him as a Methodist
Episcopal minister. He appears again in
the directory for 1836; he died not long after
this, for in 1838 he is referred to in the Dra
per Manuscripts of the Wisconsin Historical
Library as "the late" O. M. Spencer.

Spencer's narrative was originally written
for the Western Christian Advocate of Cincin
nati. The publication of this paper began
May 2, 1834. In its fourth issue Spencer's
narrative was begun under the title Indian
Captivity. A true narrative of the Capture of
the Rev. O. M. Spencer by the Indians, in the
neighborhood of Cincinnati, written by himself,
at the request of the editor. By way of intro
duction, the editor stated that "brother Spen
cer" had been particularly requested to furnish
the narrative, and to introduce it by an account
of the westward migration of his father's fam
ily, noting the various difficulties and hardships
of the pioneer life, that all might be enabled
to profit "by a comparison of their numerous
blessings with the privations, toils and dangers"
of those who had gone before. The time and
occasion of the narrative's appearance serve
to make clear several things concerning its
character and history. Written forty years
after the occurrence of the events described, it
does not have the value of a contemporary
account; to offset this, however, the author
was in the prime of life, his powers of observa-
xxiii

introduction

tion and of expression were excellently trained,
and the events of his captivity were of such a
character as to make a deep impression upon
his memory. Entire accuracy of detail on his
part could scarcely be expected. Such errors
as have been noted by the editor have been
corrected in the footnotes of the present edi
tion; the number of these is small, however,
and the story bears evidence of being a truth
ful and for the most part accurate recital of
fact. The indulgence in religious reflections
which it displays may be explained partly on
the ground of the author's calling; in part,
probably, on that of the character of the audi
ence for which it was written.

Once published, the story of Spencer's cap
tivity seems to have enjoyed a remarkable
popularity. As early as 1835 it was repub-
lished in a 32mo book of 157 pages by B.
Waugh and T. Mason of New York, and the
same year by G. W. Brice of Washington,
Pennsylvania, as an octavo of 56 pages. Of
the Waugh and Mason edition at least three
reprints were issued, in London in 1836 and
1842 and in New York in 1854. About the
year 1836 or 1838 another London reprint was
brought out under a slightly altered title,
accompanied by a theological introduction and
scriptural illustrations of the original text,
which was so changed as to be "scarcely rec
ognizable/' By 1854 a third edition of this
reprint had appeared. The Wisconsin Histori
cal Library possesses three copies of the work,
xxiv

3fnttoDuction

One is the edition issued by G. W. Brice of
Washington, Pennsylvania, in 1835; another
was published in New York in 1842 by G.
Love and P. P. Sanford for the Methodist
Book Concern; the third copy, more modern
in appearance but undated, was also published
under the auspices of the Methodist Book Con
cern by Nelson and Phillips of New York and
Hitchcock and Walden of Cincinnati. Though
issued as different editions it is evident that
the press work of these two latter volumes is
identical. The introduction, common to both
volumes and dated December I, 1834, states
that the narrative, originally written for the
Western Christian Advocate, was copied into
the Christian Advocate and Journal and was
"at this time" in course of publication in sev
eral other papers. That other editions of the
work were printed, of which no notice has come
to the present editor, is not at all improbable.
For the present edition of the narrative I
have ignored all of the editions in book form
and have gone to the original source, the file of
the Western Christian Advocate in the Wiscon
sin Historical Library. While no undue liberties
have been taken in copying, the adoption of a
typography and punctuation in accordance with
modern usage has been deemed both proper
and advisable. For these details, therefore, the
editor is responsible, rather than the news
paper typesetters of 1834.

MILO M. QUAIFE.
Madison, Wisconsin.

xxv

The Indian Captivity
of O. M. Spencer

3I«ftan Captibity of
fencer

CHAPTER I

IT was on a pleasant day in October of the
year 1790, when only 'time }£ear-s -of age, I
mounted the leading horse attached to the
foremost of two wagons destined fof^th£"f '.far-
West/' in which my mother and* sister's' were1
seated; and in which were stowed such articles
of household furniture as were indispensable to
the comfort of a family, and which could not
then be easily procured west of the Allegheny.
With spirits naturally buoyant, pleased with
the novelty of traveling, from which I antici
pated a great deal of pleasure, the few tears
which I shed on quitting forever the home of
my childhood were soon dried up; and I won
dered not a little at the sober sadness of my
father, the deep sighs of my mother, and the
frequent sobs of my sisters, whose feelings and
expectations I supposed would naturally cor
respond with mine.

My father had descended from one of the
first families who left England on account of
the persecutions for religious opinions, in the
reign of the second Charles, to seek in the
unbroken wilds of New England an asylum

3

€f)c

from oppression, and to rear a temple to the
God of their fathers in which they might
worship Him according to the dictates of
their own consciences.

Inheriting the spirit of his ancestors, he was
among the first to resist the pretensions of
Great Britain, and to arm in defense of our
rights and liberties. Having signalized himself
on several occasions, particularly in the battle
of Springfield, New Jersey, at the head of a
battalion of militia, he was appointed by Con
gress to the command of a regiment, which he
led in the battles cf Brandywine, Germantown,
and Monmouth; and at the head of which he
continued until the close of the war.

Before entering the continental army he pos
sessed a small fortune, the fruits of his industry
in a lucrative business; but of this a large
amount was destroyed by the enemy, and more
than ten thousand dollars, advanced by him in
specie to pay and clothe his regiment, were
repaid to him by Congress in continental
money, on which he sustained a total loss.
Like many of his companions in arms, after
encountering the dangers and enduring the
hardships of a protracted war, Colonel Spencer
found himself at its close reduced from afflu
ence to comparative poverty; but with them,
too, he enjoyed the proud satisfaction of having
aided in achieving that independence which
laid the foundation of our national greatness
and prosperity, and the hope of perpetuating

of

to his children's children the blessings of civil
and religious liberty.

With impaired health and injured constitu
tion he again engaged in business, hoping in
time to retrieve his losses, and trusting in the
honor and the justice of the government to pay
his equitable claims against it; but in this hope
and in this confidence he was deeply disap
pointed. After toiling many years with little
success, hearing the flattering accounts then in
circulation of the beauty and fertility of the
Miami country, he determined to explore it.
He did visit it in 1789, and being much pleased
with it determined on making it his future
residence. Previously to his leaving home he
had disposed of his certificates for his military
services at one-third part of their nominal value,
and vested their proceeds in Miami lands; and
now, having purchased some lots and erected a
cabin in Columbia for the reception of his family,
he returned home to effect their removal.

Neither my father's description of the Miami
country, nor the most glowing representations
almost daily published of ' ' the land flowing
with milk and honey/ ' could have prevailed
with my mother to abandon the home of her
fathers, "her own, her native land"; the early
companions of her youth; her faithful and long-
tried friends; and, above all, some of her own
daughters, who had married and settled around
her: but she was a most exemplary wife, sen
sible and intelligent, possessing great resolution

Cfje

and uncommon fortitude, and withal, a woman
of deep piety; and being satisfied that the step
on which my father had decided was necessary,
she acquiesced in that decision without mur
muring.

The first few days of our journey passed
very heavily. There was, indeed, much that
amused and even delighted me, but we had
little conversation; my thoughtless whistle and
the quaint expressions and occasional humor
ous sayings of the driver, an old soldier, being
all that for hours broke upon the stillness of
the lonely woods, or varied the dull monotony
of our rumbling wheels. Gradually, however,
the family became more cheerful. Dwelling less
upon the past, their thoughts began to be occu
pied with their present condition and future
prospects, and they now found much to interest
them and to render their journey agreeable.

From Mendham, a small village in East
Jersey (our late residence) our route lay through
Easton and Harrisburg.1 Passing these towns,
we soon reached the formidable mountains

xThe Spencer family followed the great highway to
the West first laid out by General Forbes' army in
the campaign against Fort Duquesne (modern Pitts
burgh) in 1758. Later known as the Pennsylvania
Road, this was one of the two chief highways from
the seaboard to the Ohio, the other being the famous
Cumberland Road. For a detailed and interesting
history of the Pennsylvania Road, see Archer B.
Hulbert, The Old Glade (Forbes s) Road (Cleveland,
1903).

6

of

which separate the waters of the Atlantic
states from those of the Mississippi Valley;
and here we were called to exert all our forti
tude, and to exercise all our patience. Those
who now travel from Philadelphia to Pitts
burgh, ascending easily and gliding rapidly over
the Allegheny, along the broad and finely-
paved road, finding at convenient distances com
modious inns and excellent entertainment, can
form but a faint idea of the difficulties and
dangers encountered, and the fatigue and pri
vations which more than forty years since
were endured by emigrants to the West, from
extremely bad roads and worse accommoda
tions. Often since, when traveling the road from
Chambersburg to Pittsburgh, in a comfortable
stage, at a rapid rate, over the precipitous
Laurel Hill and formidable Allegheny, I have
been forcibly struck with the contrast; and as
I occasionally caught a glimpse of the ancient
narrow road winding among the trees, now
rising, now descending abruptly by steep steps
of solid rock, I thought it scarcely possible
that any vehicle had ever passed over it. It
was traveled, certainly, at the risk of limbs and
even of life.

It was after a day's fatiguing journey over the
worst portion of this road, in which we were
delayed more than an hour in repairing dam
ages to one of our wagons from a disastrous
overset, that night overtook us in the midst of a
dense forest more than two miles from any

7

€f)e

habitation. This to our family, who had never
known the want of a comfortable shelter, was a
novel and an almost appalling circumstance.
To increase their apprehension the wolves com
menced a most hideous howling, and their
fruitful imaginations soon added a host of bears
and panthers and robbers. Soon, however,
with the aid of a tinder box we kindled a large
fire; and after a slender repast of biscuit and
cheese, with a little pure water from an adjoin
ing brook, we retired to our wagons and in
deep sleep soon forgot our cares and appre
hension.

We had slept perhaps two hours when,
awakening about eleven o'clock, I discovered
that my bed-fellow, a nephew a year my elder,
had left the wagon. After waiting some time,
as he did not return I called him, and repeating
my calls louder and still louder soon awoke the
family. Search was made for him in every
probable direction, but in vain; loud calls and
the firing of guns received no response save
the louder howling of the wolves, whom we
now confidently believed had torn him to
pieces. But in the midst of our alarm and
distress we received the welcome information
of his safety. He had walked in his sleep,
with bare feet and almost naked, in a cold
night of October, to a house about two miles
in advance of us on our road, had knocked at
the door and was admitted, but did not awake
until the screams of its inmates, some of whom

8

of <&.

were terror-stricken, aroused him. Recover
ing himself, he soon convinced them that he
was not an apparition, but a real "spirit of
health," and as it was now late, was kindly
accommodated with a bed for the night.

It is a fact within the recollection of many
of us, that not more than twenty-five years
since, before the application of steam to the
propulsion of vessels, almost the only convey
ance on the western waters was by keel and
flat boats. The latter, being cheap and easily
built and intended wholly for conveyance down
the Ohio and Mississippi, were always sought
by families descending these rivers.2 And as
there were several places along the Mononga-
hela at which these boats were built, and where
they could be obtained on better terms than at
Pittsburgh, instead of taking the direct road to
that place we took a southwesterly direction to
Jacob's Creek, a branch of the Youghiogheny.
Here, having arrived and waited more than
a month for the building of a boat, and for a
rise of water, we embarked for Columbia; and
in company with another family, and num
bering together about sixteen souls, soon found
ourselves quietly gliding down the beautiful
waters of the Ohio.

2For a good account of the river traffic of the Ohio
in the pioneer period, concerning which Spencer
speaks briefly here, see Archer B. Hulbert, Water
ways of Westward Expansion: The Ohio River and
Its Tributaries (Cleveland, 1903).

9

To the early immigrant it must be truly pleas
ing to mark the great and rapid changes which
within his remembrance have been wrought,
not only along the rivers, but in the whole
valley of the Mississippi . To contrast the once
unbroken wilderness, in its solitude undisturbed
save by the howl of the wolf, the terrific scream
of the panther, or the appalling yell of the
savage, with the cultivated fields and comfort
able farmhouses, the neat villages, the popu
lous towns, and even large cities which he now
beholds, risen as by magic and swarming with
inhabitants, active, industrious, and enterpris
ing; to hear the "busy hum," and note the
constant bustle of commerce; and where the
sluggish flat or laboring keel seemed scarcely
to advance, to see the stately steamer proudly
stemming the rapid current, or urged down it
at so swift a speed as seemingly to bring near
places the most remote, and to overcome, in
the short time of eight days, a distance to
perform which once required three months,
even in the best keelboat, with all the aid of
sails and oars and warps.

Yet there are times when he enjoys a mel
ancholy pleasure in his recollections of the
past; when the varied scenery of the West was
beheld by him in all its loveliness, and in all
its primeval grandeur. When, unused to the
destructive wave of the steamer or the more
desolating axe of the later settler, the unbroken
banks of the beautiful Ohio were seen, on one

10

of <©.

side, first gently sloping from the pebbled
shore fringed with willows, then gradually
ascending a few rods, covered with cotton-
wood, linden, and soft maple, then with steep
ascent rising to their summit, crowned with elm
and sycamore, and bounding the ample bottom,
where the stately beech and poplar, the noble
ash and walnut, the tall hickory, and the
majestic oak had withstood the storms of ages.
Here too were seen the flowering buckeye,
the guarded honey-tree dropping its sweets,
the fragrant spicewood, the sassafras affording
tea and the maple yielding sugar to the early
settlers. On the other side were seen the hills
bounding these fertile bottoms and forming
a vast amphitheater; sometimes breaking
abruptly in huge masses of rock, interspersed
with cedar and opposing an unyielding barrier
to the stream ; and now terminating with pre
cipitous descent, covered with lofty trees quite
down to the water's edge. There seemed to be
blended with the beauty and the lovely scenery
of the Ohio, inspiring pleasure, a wildness and
a solitude which struck the beholder with
mingled fear and awe.

Such were our sensations as we descended
the Ohio, Indeed, there was with us a pre
vailing sense of loneliness; a feeling of appre
hension, which after we left Pittsburgh was
interrupted only as we passed by Wheeling,
Marietta, Kanawha, Gallipolis, Limestone
(now May sville) , and a few other intermediate

ii

settlements, to our place of destination. But
although we were sometimes alarmed, and
often apprehended an attack from the Indians,
we saw none, nor but few signs of any, during
our passage; and providentially meeting with
no disaster, arrived safely at Columbia early in
December, 1790.

12

CHAPTER II

IT is, perhaps, unknown to many that the
broad and extensive plain stretching along
the Ohio from the Crawfish to the mouth, and
for three miles up the Little Miami, and now
divided into farms, highly cultivated, was the
ancient site of Columbia, a town laid out by
Major Benjamin Stites, its original proprietor;
and by him and others once expected to become
a large city, the great capital of the West.
From Crawfish, the small creek forming its
northwestern boundary, more than one mile up
the Ohio, and extending back about three-
fourths of a mile, and half way up the high
hill which formed a part of its eastern and
northern limits, the ground was laid off into
blocks containing each eight lots of half an
acre, bounded by streets intersecting at right
angles. The residue of the plain was divided
into lots of four and five acres for the accommo
dation of the town. Over this plain, on our
arrival, we found scattered about fifty cabins,
flanked by a small stockade nearly half a mile
below the mouth of the Miami, together with
a few blockhouses for the protection of the
inhabitants, at suitable distances along the
bank of the Ohio.

Whoever has traveled the turnpike leading
from Cincinnati to Milford, after crossing the
large culvert over Crawfish and passing the

13

€i)e

cluster of buildings beyond it, has seen, a few
hundred yards farther on, near the foot of the
hill on the left of that road, an old hewed log-
house, with four small windows in front, until
within a few years past shaded with large wil
lows. About six feet north of that house,
built forty-two years since and long the resi
dence of my father, stood the small log cabin,
our first humble shelter on our landing. Its
narrow doors of thick oak plank, turning on
stout wooden hinges and secured with strong
bars braced with timber from the floor, formed
a safe barrier to the entrance below; while
above, on every side, were portholes or small
embrasures from which we might see and fire
upon the enemy. Of windows we had but two,
containing only four panes of glass each, in
openings so small that any attempt to enter them
by force must have proved fatal to an assailant.
We had occupied our new habitation about
a month, adding greatly to its accommoda
tion and supplying many conveniences around
us; indeed, we began to submit to the inconve
niences, privations, hardships, and dangers com
mon to the pioneers of the West without much
repining; and having heard of no disturbances
by Indians in our immediate neighborhood for
some time previously, felt little apprehension
of danger. But our fears were suddenly
aroused by the news of an attack made by
several hundred Indians on Dunlap's Station
(now Colerain), fifteen or twenty miles north-

of <©. J¥U fencer

west of Cincinnati, then garrisoned by a few
inhabitants and thirty or forty soldiers under
the command of Lieutenant Kingsbury.3 This
intelligence was brought by Mr. John S. Wal
lace (now Colonel Wallace, our respected fel
low citizen), who, at the risk of his life, left
the garrison at night, passed unperceived
through the enemy, and safely reached Cin
cinnati the same night. Of the volunteers,
who marched immediately to relieve the gar
rison, one company was from Columbia. All
were well mounted and armed with rifles,
knives, and some even with tomahawks, and
dressed in hunting shirts, moved off in single
file. Arriving at Colerain too late to encounter
the enemy, who a few hours before had raised
the siege, they after a short pursuit returned
home, and by no means allayed our apprehen
sions by their fearful accounts of Indian war
fare and savage barbarity.

We had often heard of the cruelties prac
ticed by the Indians; but the details of the
burning of Mr. Abner Hunt, whom they had
taken prisoner a few hours before their attack
on the garrison, shocked us beyond measure.
It is much easier to conceive than to describe

'Jacob Kingsbury, later colonel and commander of
the military forces of the United States in the North
west. With the exception of the four years 1783-87
Kingsbury 's military service was continuous from
1775 until 1815. Many of his private papers are
preserved in the Library of Congress and in that of
the Chicago Historical Society.

15

the feelings of the garrison when, after being
urged and entreated by the wretched man to
purchase their own safety and above all his
life by surrendering to the enemy, they saw
him led off and witnessed the fearful prepara
tions for torture; or the heart-sickening an
guish of hope suddenly extinguished, the mute
despair of the prisoner as he heard the de
cided, though reluctant, refusal of the garrison
to save his life at the certain loss of their own.
The Indians had tied their prisoner to a sapling
within sight of the garrison, who distinctly
heard his screams, and built a large fire so
near as to scorch him, inflicting the most acute
pain; then as his flesh from the action of the
fire and the frequent application of live coals
became less sensible, making deep incisions in
his limbs, as if to renew his susceptibility of
pain; answering his cries for water to allay
the extreme thirst caused by burning, by fresh
tortures; and finally, when exhausted and
fainting, death seemed approaching to release
the wretched prisoner, terminating his suffer
ings by applying flaming brands to his naked
bowels. In this siege, which lasted two days,
the Indians suffered severely in killed and
wounded, without inflicting any serious per
sonal injury on the garrison, whose principal
loss was in cattle, destroyed or driven off by
the enemy. The attack on Dunlap's Station
was followed by successive depredations and
murders by the Indians.

16

of <&. ffi. g>ytnttt

In the ensuing spring they attacked several
boats, killed many persons, and took some
prisoners on the Ohio. Individuals were killed
or made prisoners even on the outlots of Cin
cinnati and near the mouth of Deer Creek, and
many were the "hair-breadth escapes M from
captivity or death. It is few years since, that
near the turnpike three miles above this city
might be seen the large elm behind which
some Indians stood concealed, and as he passed
on horseback, seized and made Bailey pris
oner: and not more than five miles beyond,
where the same road crosses the narrows of
Little Miami, only a few months since I recog
nized the spot where the brave but unfortunate
Newell fell a victim to the rifle and scalping
knife of the savage.

The successful expedition of General Scott
of Kentucky against the Indians on the Wabash
in May, 1791, had but little effect on the tribes
north of us, whose boldness and daring re
mained unchecked.4 Early in the summer of
that year they stole our horses, two in number,
from a shed adjoining our cabin; and only a

4In May, 1791, General Charles Scott of Kentucky,
accompanied by Colonel James Wilkinson, led 800
mounted Kentuckians in a raid upon the Wea villages
on the Wabash of which Ouiatanon was the leading
center. The raid was entirely successful in accom
plishing its immediate object, the destruction of the
Wea towns, but as Spencer points out it did not serve
to check in any way the hostility displayed by the
northwestern tribes in general toward the Americans.

17

few days afterwards we narrowly escaped the
total massacre of our family. We had just
ended our evening's repast and were about to
rise from our table when one of my sisters,
hearing as she believed the almost noiseless
tread of approaching footsteps, casting her
eyes upon the door and perceiving as she
thought the latch gently rising, sprang up and,
seizing it, held it down until the doors were
barred. Immediate preparations were made
for defense. Our lights were irjstantly extin
guished, and while the females of our family
sought safety by covering themselves with
beds the men, three in number, with a rifle
and two muskets manned the portholes above;
and by frequently moving to the different
sides of the house endeavored to impress the
Indians with an idea of our strength. The
tread of the Indians was now distinctly heard,
and the forms of two or three of them were
indistinctly seen gliding through the darkness.
Their intention, no doubt, had been to take us
by surprise; and, opening the back door silent
ly, to have first fired upon us, and then to
have rushed into the house and with their
tomahawks have completed the work of de
struction; but failing in this, being too few to
take us by assault, seeing no opportunity of
injuring us, and probably, too, not wishing to
alarm the town without first effecting some
mischief, they soon stole off and disappeared.
But a few minutes, however, had elapsed be-

18

of <&. ffi. fencer

fore we heard the crack of rifles within two
hundred yards of us, followed by the shrill
warwhoop of the Indians. Three musket shots
in quick succession soon sounded an alarm
and in ten minutes about thirty men had assem
bled at the cabin of Ensign Bowman on the
hill side, a short distance west of us. They
found the family in great consternation. The
Indians had fired into the house through an
opening between the logs, and guided by the
light within, had wounded Mrs. Bowman
slightly in her body.

At sunrise of the following day a small
party pursued the Indians, whose number
from their trails did not exceed six; and
toward noon, finding their tracks quite fresh
and judging that they now were almost in
view of the enemy, moved cautiously, half
bent and straining their eyes as if they would
look through every tree before them. Suddenly
at the sharp crack of one of their own rifles,
as by one impulse each sprang behind a tree,
waiting a few moments in breathless suspense
the appearance of the Indians. At this moment
a huge bear was seen bounding off a few rods
from their left, and the disappointed marks
man was heard muttering curses on his rifle
for deceiving his expectations. The rest of
the party, however, who had strong doubts of
his courage and believed that he had availed
himself of this opportunity to avoid an encoun
ter with the enemy, were deeply incensed, and

19

could with difficulty be prevented from antici
pating the decision of a court martial by in
flicting summary punishment on the culprit
who in one unlucky moment, as they confident
ly believed, had deprived them of the certain
spoils of victory.5

Soon after the failure of Colonel Harmar's
expedition the government had determined to
send a powerful force against the Indians, suffi
cient at once to reduce them to subjection.
Troops were daily arriving at Cincinnati so that
in September, 1791, a large force, consisting of
regulars, levies, and militia, under the command
of General St. Clair, then governor of the
Northwestern Territory, was ready to march
against the enemy. From the known experi
ence and distinguished reputation of the gen
eral as a soldier, and the character of the
officers under his command, the greater part
of whom had seen service, complete success
was confidently anticipated; and in the full ex
pectation that the Indians would be humbled

5A somewhat different contemporary story of the
result of the pursuit of the Indians is preserved in the
Draper Mss. of the Wisconsin Historical Library.
It relates that two of the pursuers came upon two
Indians engaged in cooking venison a few miles from
Cincinnati. Both white men fired at the same instant
upon their quarry. Unhappily, however, both had
picked the same man, and while he fell dead, pierced
by both balls, his companion darted into the adjoining
thicket and escaped. The whites returned to Co
lumbia bearing as a trophy the first scalp which was
brought to the infant settlement.

20

of <©* ffi.

into submission, and apprehending no danger
while a force so formidable guarded their fron
tiers, the inhabitants of the Miami Valley en
joyed for some weeks tranquillity and repose.

From Cincinnati, the march of General St.
Glair's army was in a direction a little west of
north. Passing Fort Hamilton, which they had
previously built on the site of the present town
of Hamilton, and crossing the Great Miami at
that place, they advanced about twenty-six
miles, and having built Fort St. Glair near the
present town of Eaton, marched twenty-two
miles farther north and erected Fort Jefferson.

Their progress unavoidably had been slow,
not only from the delay of building forts but
from the nature of the ground over which they
passed, where much labor was required in
opening and making a road for the passage of
their artillery and baggage wagons. They had
suffered some detention, too, from the want of
supplies; sometimes failing from the neglect
of contractors and at others interrupted or cut
off by the enemy. Pursuing the direct course
to the Indian villages on the Maumee River,
or Miami of Lake Erie, they had on the third
of November advanced about thirty miles north
westwardly of Fort Jefferson and within forty-
five miles of the nearest town of the enemy;
while the inhabitants of the Miami settlements,
who had almost daily heard of the progress of
the army and who confidently anticipated
their complete success, were anxiously expect-

21

ing soon to hear that they had achieved a
glorious and decisive victory. But inexpressible
was their disappointment and deep was their
consternation when on the evening of the sixth
of November accounts reached them of the total
defeat of the army; accounts confirmed every
hour by some of its fugitives, with more fearful
details of Indian barbarity, and followed almost
immediately by the broken remains of the
army, who, marching night and day, reached
Cincinnati on the eighth.

The battle of the fourth of November, 1791,
and the disastrous defeat of General St. Glair's
army, form a part of the early history of the
West; most of their details have been told,
and need not here be repeated. I may, how
ever, be allowed to state some facts not gen
erally known, related by officers who were in
that engagement; and others communicated to
me afterward, while a captive among the In
dians, by prisoners taken in that battle.

On the afternoon of the third of November
the main body of the army, principally regulars
and levies, encamped on the south side of a
branch of the Wabash in two lines, distant
from each other seventy or eighty yards, front
ing the stream and extending along it, and
within a few hundred feet of it, about three
hundred and fifty yards. On the north side of
the stream and a quarter of a mile in advance
of the main army the militia under Colonel
Oldham were posted; and beyond them at a

22

of <©*

suitable distance an advance guard of a com
pany of regulars, under Captain Slough, was
placed. Some time before light of the ensuing
day the approach of the Indians in consider
able numbers compelled this guard to fall back
upon the militia. But although this fact was
reported to General Butler, and although he
was advised that an attack would certainly be
made upon the army that morning, he seemed
to have either regarded the information "as an
idle tale, " or to have relied so confidently in
the strength of the army as to have considered
it invincible.6

The morning of the fourth had dawned; the
shrill fife and rolling drum had sounded the
cheerful reveille; the troops, as was their daily
practice, had manned their lines and stood
under arms in battle array until after the sun
had risen, when, no enemy appearing, they had

6The incident touched upon constitutes one of the
deplorable affairs in the history of the United States
army. Butler, second in command of St. Glair's
army, had taken bitter offense at his chief. Appar
ently he chose to conceal from St. Clair the news
brought to him by Captain Slough of the advance of
the Indian army, desiring the disgrace of his chief
even though at the risk of the destruction of the
American army. As a consequence the army had
been destroyed five days before St. Clair received
Captain Slough's report of the Indian advance upon
it. The most charitable explanation which can be
offered concerning General Butler's course is the
suggestion that sanity had deserted him. On the
whole affair, see Hulbert, op. cit. 148-52.

23

€f)e

retired, some to prepare their breakfasts or
perform various other duties, and not a few to
lounge in their tents. Suddenly the sharp crack
of a thousand rifles, mingled with the hideous
and deafening yells of the Indians, announced
but too certainly that the militia in front were
attacked in great force by the enemy. The
drums of the encampment instantly beat to
arms and the soldiers hastened to their posts;
but scarcely had the troops formed and pre
pared for action when the routed militia, closely
pursued by the savages, rushed through the
front line into the camp, throwing that line into
a confusion from which it could not be entirely
recovered. Following up their advantage the
Indians boldly advanced upon the front as if
determined to force it, but meeting with a firm
resistance and receiving several well-directed
volleys from our men, were compelled to fall
back. Our troops now for a short time fought
bravely, but contending under great disadvan
tages against superior numbers, soon became
disheartened. Occupying an elevated piece of
ground, while they stood openly exposed to the
destructive fire of the Indians from behind
trees and logs their own principally passed
entirely over the enemy; their bullets, and
particularly the balls of their cannon, being
afterwards found lodged in the bodies and
limbs of the trees thirty feet above the ground.
Early in the action the troops were entirely
surrounded by the Indians, who, while some of

24

of

them retreated from one side of the camp
before the charge of the bayonet, others rushed
in on the opposite side or on the flanks, killing
and scalping the wounded. These charges
were repeated several times, but always with
great loss to our troops; indeed, it seemed as
if the Indians fled at first before their charge
as if to draw them out some distance from
their lines, then suddenly turning upon them,
compel them to retreat, leaving their wounded
to certain destruction.

It was during one of these charges that the
brave but unfortunate General Butler was
killed. He had been mortally wounded early
in the battle and carried to his tent; and de
termining to sell his life as dearly as possible,
was there placed in a reclining posture, with a
pair of pistols by his side. In pursuing our
troops, retreating in their turn, two warriors
at once espied him, and both anxious to plun
der his person as well as to take his scalp,
rushed forward, the one only a few feet in ad
vance of the other. The foremost Indian had
but just entered his tent when the general,
leveling one pistol, shot him dead; but while
in the act of presenting the second, received
the stroke of the hurled tomahawk of the
other and instantly expired. A few rods from
this tent Captain Ford, the only surviving
officer of artillery, severely wounded and dis
abled, was providentially saved from a similar
fate by having been placed against a large tree

25

on the opposite side from that on which the
Indians were then charging.

The fatal rifles of the enemy were still deal
ing death, and their tomahawks and scalping
knives, completing the work of destruction, had
killed nearly half of the soldiers and more than
three-fourths of the officers when General St.
Clair, satisfied that further resistance would
be hopeless, determined on a retreat as the
only means of saving the remnant of the army.
The remaining troops were now formed under
Colonel Darke, and vigorously charging the
Indians, who gave way on their right and left,
gained the road and commenced a retreat,
which soon increased to a flight. Not only
were the artillery and baggage abandoned, but
even the wounded, with very few exceptions,
were left to their fate. Each, struggling for
his own preservation, thought not of the safety
of others. The life of Captain Ford, however,
was saved by the devoted attachment of one
of his men, who, placing him upon a horse,
bore him safely from the battle-ground; while
Dr. Richard Allison, senior surgeon of the
army, than whom none were more brave,
humane, and benevolent, mounted on his own
powerful and spirited horse with his waiter
seated behind him, brought off from the field
Captain Shaylor and three others, who, laying
hold of the mane and tail of the noble animal,
were enabled to escape the pursuit of the
enemy.

26

of

Of about 1500 men who engaged in battle
on that fatal morning, 630, including 37 officers,
were killed; and 244, including 30 officers,
were wounded. Besides these, a number of
pack-horsemen, wagoners, and others attached
to the army were killed; and of nearly 2OO
women, principally its followers, 3 only es
caped, about 50 were killed, and the residue
were made prisoners.7 Had the Indians pur
sued their advantage they might easily have
cut off the whole remnant of the troops, many
of whom, soon after the retreat commenced,
threw away their arms, betaking themselves to
flight. But having signally defeated the army
and satiated for a time their thirst for carnage,
the greater part of them remained to plunder
the camp; while those who pursued the flying
troops, cutting off the stragglers and scalping
the wounded, after following them about four
miles, fearing they should not obtain their
share of the spoil, suddenly gave over the pur
suit and returned to the encampment.

Here, after plundering and stripping the
dead, securing everything that they could indi
vidually appropriate to themselves, and after
being gorged with feasting, principally on
slaughtered bullocks, they began to drink and
carouse; and while some became stupid, others,

7Probably no other statement could cast a clearer
light upon the mismanagement which terminated in
the ruin of St. Clair's army than this one concerning
the presence of these women.

27

€f)e

growing more ferocious as they felt the influ
ence of the "fire water/1 rent the air with their
hideous war whoops, acted over their savage
feats, cutting and mangling the dead bodies;
and finding many not yet dead from their
wounds, tore out the hearts of some and
throwing others into the fire terminated their
sufferings. A few Indians, less ferocious,
dressing themselves in the uniforms of the
dead officers, strutted about the encampment.
One of these I afterward saw while a prisoner
among the Shawnees, wearing the dress coat
of a field officer of infantry, with silver epau
lets on his shoulders and a watch suspended
from each ear. With one hand taking hold of
the facing of his coat, he said to me, "Me kill
urn"; and with the other smiting his breast,
vociferated, "Captain Walker! Great man
me!" The Indians were led by several brave
and experienced chiefs; and besides the in
famous renegade,Girty,8 and the notorious Colo
nel Elliott,9 1 was told that Captain McKee10 of

8Apparently Simon Girty, eldest of three brothers
— Simon, James, and George — who, for a generation
were objects of fear and loathing to the American
frontiersmen. They were natives of Pennsylvania
who were captured by an Indian raiding party in
1756, and who during the Revolution upheld the
British cause. For an account of the brothers' ca
reers, see Consul W. Butterfield, History of the Girtys
(Cincinnati, 1890).

9Matthew Elliott was a native of Ireland who re
moved at an early age to Pennsylvania. He became

28

of <©. ffi. fencer

the royal American and several of the British
officers were in the battle.

The defeat of General St. Clair was not fol
lowed by those disastrous consequences which
at first were apprehended. Strong garrisons
being kept up at Hamilton, St. Clair, and even
Fort Jefferson, afforded to the inhabitants of
the Miami settlements great protection; while
in Fort Washington several companies of troops
more than were necessary for its defense not
only gave constant security to the citizens of
Cincinnati, but the means of repelling any in
roads of the enemy, and of extending aid in
case of attack to other villages. Perhaps, too,
a considerable loss which the Indians suffered

an Indian trader, and early in the Revolution was
carried prisoner to Detroit by a band of Wyandot.
He thereupon allied himself with the British cause
and later claimed he had gone voluntarily to Detroit.
At first the British doubted his fidelity but he lived
down this suspicion and became one of the most
noted British agents on the frontier. How the Ken-
tuckians regarded him was shown in 1814, when, on
the capture of Amherstburg after Perry's victory on
Lake Erie, they completely wrecked his house and
furniture.

10Alexander McKee was, like the Girtys, a native
of Pennsylvania who sided with the British during
the Revolution. He became an agent in the British
Indian Department and acquired much influence over
the western tribesmen, which he employed, after the
Revolution, to incite them against the Americans.
He had a large trading house on the Maumee, where
he received Indian refugees from Wayne's victory of
Fallen Timbers in 1794.

29

a few weeks after their victory may have oper
ated as a check to their inroads upon the fron
tiers. This was effected by General Scott,
who with a body of mounted men, principally
Kentucky volunteers, proceeded to the battle
ground and taking by surprise about one-fourth
of the enemy's late force (admitted by them
to be two thousand) whom he there found still
carousing, signally defeated them, killing more
than two hundred and recovering, besides, six
or seven hundred muskets found in the camp
and along the road, some baggage, tents, and a
part of the artillery; several pieces of which
were thrown by the Indians into the Wabash,
where, I believe, they were afterwards found.

CHAPTER III

FEW only of those who now behold Cin
cinnati, in point of extent, population, and
the number, beauty, and permanency of
its buildings the seventh city in the United
states, have any correct idea of what it was more
than forty-three years since. About the twenty-
second of February, 1791, when I first saw it,
it contained not more than forty dwellings,
all log cabins, and not exceeding two hundred
and fifty inhabitants. In the southeastern
part of the town, near the site of his present
dwelling, stood the cabin of Mr. D. E. Wade
in the midst of the forest trees; and just below
on the first bank, between the mouth of Deer
Creek and Lawrence Street, were scattered
among the trees four or five more cabins. Be
tween Eastern Row (a narrow street enlarged
into Broadway) and Main Street on Front and
Columbia streets there were about twenty log
houses; and on Sycamore and Main, princi
pally on the second bank or hill, as it was called,
there were scattered about fifteen cabins more.
At the foot of this bank, extending across
Broadway and Main streets, were large ponds,
on which as lately as the winter of 1798 I have
seen boys skating. All the ground from the
foot of the second bank to the river between
Lawrence Street and Broadway, and appro
priated to the fort, was an open space on

€t)e ^n&ian Captitatp

which, although no trees were left standing,
most of their large trunks were still lying. On
the top, and about eighty feet distant from the
brow of the second bank, facing the river,
stood Fort Washington, occupying nearly all
the ground between Third and Fourth streets
and between Ludlow Street and Broadway.

This fort, of nearly a square form, was
simply a wooden fortification, whose four sides
or walls, each about one hundred and eighty
feet long, were constructed of hewed logs
erected into barracks two stones high, con
nected at the corners by high pickets, with
bastions or blockhouses also of hewed logs, and
projecting about ten feet in front of each side
of the fort, so that the cannon placed within
them could be bought to rake its walls. Through
the center of the south side or front of the
fort was the principal gateway, a passage
through this line of barracks about twelve feet
wide and ten feet high, secured by strong
wooden doors of the same dimensions. Ap
pended to the fort on its north side, and
enclosed with high palisades extending from its
northeast and northwest corners to a block
house, was a small triangular space in which
were constructed shops for the accommodations
of the artificers. Extending along the whole
front of the fort was a fine esplanade about
eighty feet wide and enclosed with a handsome
paling on the brow of the bank, the descent
from which to the lower bottom was sloping,

32

of <0* fK. fencer

about thirty feet. The front and sides of the
fort were whitewashed and at a small distance
presented a handsome and imposing appear
ance. On the eastern side were the officers'
gardens, finely cultivated, ornamented with
beautiful summer houses, and yielding in their
season an abundance of vegetables.

The twenty-second of February, 1792, was
celebrated by the officers at Fort Washington,
with their ladies and those of Columbia and
Cincinnati, altogether about twelve, by what was
then in the West considered a splendid ball,
preceded by the firing of cannon, the discharge
of rockets, and the exhibition of a variety of
fireworks; and in riding, visiting, dancing, and
other amusements they soon forgot their wounds
and the dangers of their late disastrous cam
paign.

Often as I sit securely in the house of God,
the spacious temple of the Most High, survey
ing the hundreds that surround me fearlessly
raising their notes of praise and tranquilly
worshiping the Father of mercies, the days of
other years and scenes long, long past recur to
my mind with all the vividness of recent occur
rence. Then fresh in my remembrance is the
rude log house, the first humble sanctuary of
the first settlers of Columbia, standing amidst
the tall forest trees on the beautiful knoll where
now may be seen a graveyard and the ruins
of a Baptist meeting house of later years.
There on the holy sabbath, we were wont to

33 •

assemble to hear the word of life; but our
fathers met with their muskets and rifles, pre
pared for action and ready to repel any attack
of the enemy. And while the watchman on the
walls of Zion was uttering his faithful and
pathetic warning, the sentinels without, at a
few rods distance, with measured step were
now pacing their walks, and now standing with
strained eyes endeavoring to pierce through
the distance, carefully scanning every object
that seemed to have life or motion.

The first clergyman I there heard preach was
Mr. Gano, father of the late General Gano of
this city, then a captain and one of the earliest
settlers of Columbia.11 Never shall I forget that
holy and venerable man, with locks white with
years, as with a voice tremulous with age he
ably expounded the word of truth and affec
tionately encouraged penitent sinners to hope
in the Divine forgiveness, from the words of
Job, "O that I knew where I might find Him!
that I might come even to His seat! I would
order my cause before Him, and fill my mouth

uThe father was Rev. Stephen Gano, founder of
the Baptist church at Columbia, whose church build
ing is sometimes said to have been the first in the
state of Ohio. The son was Major- General John S.
Gano, who served with William Henry Harrison in
the northwestern wars of this period. On the oc
casion of the celebration of the forty-fifth anniversary
of the settling of Cincinnati, December 26, 1833,
General Harrison paid an eloquent tribute to the
soldierly and other virtues of General Gano.

34

of

with arguments/' He has long since gone to
reap the reward of them "that turn many to
righteousness/' and most of those once his
hearers are dwellers in that land whence they
shall never emigrate. Often, too, as I rest
quietly in a comfortable dwelling or sit at a
table crowned with plenty, possessing not only
every necessary, but some of the luxuries of
life, I think of the hardships of the early settlers
of the West; and contrasting their perils and
privations with the security and plenty of the
present day, mentally exclaim with the Psalm
ist: ''The lines are fallen unto us in pleasant
places; yea, we have a goodly heritage/'
My wife, who now sits beside me, and whose
parents settled at Marietta in the spring of
1790, says that so great in that summer was
the scarcity of breadstuffs that her mother was
obliged to send her children from the house
while she prepared bread for her boarders, who
by some fortunate circumstance had obtained
a bushel of corn meal; and I have often heard
that in the Miami settlements the same summer
many, while planting and tending their crops
were confined wholly to boiled corn as a sub
stitute for bread; and sometimes, destitute
even of that, used in its stead a sweet bulbous
root, called bear grass.

I well recollect that in 1791 so scarce and
dear was flour that the little that could be
afforded in families was laid by to be used only
in sickness, or for the entertainment of friends;

35

and although corn was then abundant, there
was but one mill (Wickerham's), a floating mill
on the Little Miami, near where Turpin's now
stands. Built in a small flatboat tied to the
bank, its wheel turning slowly with the natural
current running between the flat and a small
pirogue anchored in the stream, and on which
one end of its shaft rested, and having only
one pair of small stones it was at best barely
sufficient to supply meal for the inhabitants of
Columbia and the neighboring families; and
sometimes from low water and other unfavor
able circumstances it was of little use, so that we
were obliged to supply the deficiency from hand
mills, a most laborious mode of grinding.

The winter of 1791-92 was followed by an
early and delightful spring; indeed, I have
often thought that our first western winters
were much milder, our springs earlier, and our
autumns longer than they are now. On the
last of February some of the trees were putting
forth their foliage; in March the red bud, the
hawthorn, and the dogwood, in full bloom,
checkered the hills, displaying their beautiful
colors of rose and lily; and in April the ground
was covered with mayapple, bloodroot, ginseng,
violets, and a great variety of herbs and flow
ers. Flocks of parroquets were seen, decked
in their rich plumage of green and gold.
Birds of various species and of every hue were
flitting from tree to tree, and the beautiful
redbird and the untaught songster of the West

36

of <^. ffi.

made the woods vocal with their melody. Now
might be heard the plaintive wail of the dove,
and now the rumbling drum of the partridge
or the loud gobble of the turkey. Here might
be seen the clumsy bear, doggedly moving off,
or urged by pursuit into a laboring gallop,
retreating to his citadel in the top of some lofty
tree; or, approached suddenly, raising himself
erect in the attitude of defense facing his
enemy, and waiting his approach; there the
timid deer, watchfully resting or cautiously
feeding, or aroused from his thicket gracefully
bounding off, then stopping, erecting his stately
head, and for a moment gazing around or
snuffing the air to ascertain his enemy, instantly
springing off, clearing logs and bushes at a
bound and soon distancing his pursuers.

It seemed an earthly paradise; and but for
apprehension of the wily copperhead, who lay
silently coiled among the leaves or beneath
the plants waiting to strike his victim; the horrid
rattlesnake, who, more chivalrous, however,
with head erect amidst his ample folds, pre
pared to dart upon his foe, generously, with
the loud noise of his rattle, apprised him of his
danger; and the still more fearful and insidious
savage, who, crawling upon the ground or
noiselessly approaching behind trees and thick
ets, sped the deadly shaft or fatal bullet, you
might have fancied you were in the confines
of Eden or the borders of Elysium.

At this delightful season the inhabitants of our

37

village went forth to their labor, inclosing their
fields which the spring flood had opened, tilling
their ground, and planting their corn for their
next year's sustenance. I said went forth, for
their principal cornfield was distant from Co
lumbia about one and a half miles east, and
adjoining the extensive plain on which the town
stood. That large tract of alluvial ground,
still known by the name of Turkey Bottom,
and which, lying about fifteen feet below the
adjoining plain and annually overflowed, is yet
very fertile, was laid off into lots of five acres
each and owned by the inhabitants of Co
lumbia; some possessing one, and others two or
more lots, and to save labor, was enclosed
with one fence.

Here the men generally worked in companies,
exchanging labor, or in adjoining fields, with
their firearms near them, and in case of an
attack ready to unite for their common defense.
Here their usual annual crop of corn from
ground very ordinarily cultivated was eighty
bushels per acre; and some lots, well-tilled,
produced a hundred, and in very favorable
seasons a hundred and ten bushels to the acre.
An inhabitant of New England, New Jersey,
or some portions of Maryland would scarcely
think it credible that in hills four feet apart
were four or five stalks, one and a half inches
in diameter and fifteen feet in height, bearing
each two or three ears of corn, of which some
were so far from the ground that to pull them

38

of

an ordinary man was obliged to stand on tip
toe. Small as I then was I drove the oxen
while my father, followed by the corn dressers,
guided the plow between the rows; for having
lost our horses we were obliged to substitute
cattle; which, however, connected by a long
yoke having the draft near to one of them and
permitting each to walk in a separate row,
fully supplied the place of a horse.

Well do I recollect with what alacrity I per
formed my labor on the promise of my father
that I should spend the approaching Fourth of
July at Fort Washington; and well do I re
member with what gayety and high expectations
of coming pleasure I left home to realize
those expectations. It was on the afternoon
of the third of July, 1792, in company with
my sisters and several ladies of Columbia, and
some officers who had arrived there on the
morning of that day for the express purpose of
conveying them to Fort Washington to partake
of a dinner to be given by the officers and
followed with a ball on the evening of the
Fourth. We left the shore in front of my
father's dwelling in a fine barge rowed by eight
soldiers, and were soon descending with the
rapid current of the river at the rate of six
miles an hour.

The scenery of the Ohio between Columbia
and Cincinnati was in those days truly romantic:
scarcely a tree had been cut on either side
between the mouth of the Crawfish and that

39

of Deer Creek, a distance of more than four
miles. The sand-bar now extending from its
left bank opposite to Sportmen's Hall was then
a small island, between which and the Kentucky
shore was a narrow channel with sufficient
depth of water for the passage of boats. The
upper and lower points of this island were bare,
but its center, embracing about four acres,
was covered with small cottonwood and sur
rounded by willows extending along its sides
almost down to the water's edge. The right
bank of the river, crowned with its lofty hills,
now gradually ascending and now rising
abruptly to their summits and forming a vast
amphitheater, was from Columbia, extending
down about two miles, very steep, and covered
with trees quite down to the beach. From
thence, nearly opposite the foot of the island,
its ascent became more gradual, and for two
miles farther down, bordering the tall trees
with which it was covered, was a thick growth
of willows through which in many places it was
difficult to penetrate. Below this the beach
was wide and stony, with only here and there
a small tuft of willows, while the wood on the
side and on the top of the bank was more open.
Not far from this bank, and near the line of
the present turnpike, was a narrow road leading
from Columbia to Cincinnati, just wide enough
for the passage of a wagon, which, winding
around the point of the hill above Deer Creek,
descended northwardly about four hundred

40

of <©. ffil.

feet, and crossing that creek in a southerly
direction, ascending gradually its western bank,
led along the ground, now Symmes Street, di
rectly toward Fort Washington, and diverging
at the intersection of Lawrence Street to the
right and left of the fort, entered the town. I
have been thus particular in describing the
river between Columbia and Cincinnati, not
only that those who now see it may have some
idea of its former appearance, but that the
reader may better understand the narrative
that follows.

Scarcely an hour, enlivened by conversation,
had elapsed from the time we left Columbia
before we landed on the shore in front of the
garrison and, ascending the bank, in a few
minutes entered Fort Washington.

The morning of the Fourth was ushered in
by the discharge of thirteen rounds from the
cannon of the fort; at twelve the firing was
repeated, and the troops under arms performed
various evolutions; at dinner, as usual, the
toasts were followed by the discharge of artil
lery; at dusk there was a brilliant exhibition of
fireworks; and at night, if not a splendid, yet in
the opinion of those present, a very agreeable
and sprightly ball. The two succeeding days
were spent by me in various amusements; but
having exhausted these and grown tired of play
I became restless and uneasy, and determining
to return home, with all the inconsiderateness
of childhood (for I was not then eleven years

Cajrtiiritp

old) I secretly left the garrison, whose first
knowledge of my absence was the report of my
capture.

Reaching the bank in front of the fort about
three o'clock on the afternoon of the seventh,
I found a canoe with four persons on board
bound for Columbia, just about to push off
from the shore. Discovering one of them to be
an acquaintance I hailed them, requesting them
to take me on board; which request, after a few
moments' consultation, they complied with.
The canoe, which was small, narrow, and quite
unsteady, had proceeded only a few rods above
the mouth of Deer Creek when one of the men,
much intoxicated, having made several lurches
on both sides, at length tumbling overboard and
nearly oversetting us, after a few awkward
flounces reached the shore. Not knowing how
to swim and being afraid to continue in the
canoe, I prevailed on the remaining men to set
me on shore; when, after a few minutes, leaving
the drunken man sitting on the bank we pro
ceeded toward Columbia. In the bow of the
canoe stood Mr. Jacob Light, who with a pole
aided in propelling it; in the stern, a stranger,
a swarthy, athletic man, with thick, black,
bushy hair, sat with a paddle, which he some
times used as an oar and at others as a rudder;
and in the bottom of its center sat Mrs. Cole-
man, then an old woman of sixty. For myself,
I walked along the beach a little below the
canoe, now listening to the merry conversation

42

of <©. $l. fencer

of my companions and now amusing myself by
skimming small flat stones over the surface of
the water.

About a mile above the mouth of Deer
Creek a canoe which we had discovered some
time before descending the middle of the river,
having on board some market people and a
woman whose child cried loudly and incessantly,
passed us, and elicited from the old lady, as
is common in such cases, some remarks on the
government of children. We had rounded the
point of a small cove less than a mile below
the foot of the island and proceeded a few
hundred yards along the close willows, here
bordering the beach at about two rods' distance
from the water, when the stranger in the stern
of the canoe, looking back and discovering the
drunken man staggering along the shore nearly a
mile below us, remarked with an oath that he
would be "bait for the Indians. " Scarcely
had he spoken and resumed his labor, for a few
moments suspended, when turning my eyes
from the drunken man to the men in the canoe
I saw Mr. Light spring suddenly into the river
and the stranger at the stern falling over toward
the shore. In the next moment, hearing the
sharp crack of two rifles in instant succession
and looking toward the willows about two rods
above me, I saw through the thick smoke of
their guns two Indians, with faces black as
midnight, rushing toward the canoe.

Never shall I forget my feelings at that

43

Cajrtiiritp

moment. For an instant I stood motionless
and my brief reflection in that moment, as I
involuntarily drew down my head between my
shoulders, was: I have made some narrow es
capes but now death is inevitable. One Indian
was now within ten feet of me; in his right hand
was the uplifted tomahawk and in his left the
naked scalping knife. Instantly as on wheel
ing, I ran toward the water, hoping to reach
the canoe and push out into the river; he
passed above me down to the shore, near which
I arrived just at the moment when, striking his
tomahawk into the head of the unfortunate
stranger> seizing him by the hair, passing his
knife quickly around his scalp and tearing it
violently off, he held it up for a moment with
fiendish exultation. Finding I could not gain
the canoe which by this time had got out into
the current, turning from the heart-sickening
sight of the mangled man, and dreading every
moment a similar fate, I next attempted to run
down the river in the vain hope of escaping;
but I had not proceeded ten steps when the
other Indian, discovering my design, easily
headed me. Instead, however, of seizing me
violently, approaching within a few feet he
extended to me his hand in token of peace. I
took it, and from what I had heard of the
character and customs of the Indians feeling
assured of present safety, became at once calm.
The whole of these events did not occupy
more than thirty seconds. The Indians had been

44

of <©*

on the hill in quest of horses, when hearing the
loud crying of the child in the canoe that about
ten minutes before had passed us, they came
down to the bank of the river thinking they
might have an opportunity of effecting some
mischief. Arriving too late to injure those in
that canoe and discovering ours about a quar
ter of a mile below, the Indians determined to
wait our approach; and having planned to kill
the men and women and take me a prisoner,
concealed themselves behind a large log among
the willows, whence, as we came nearly oppo
site, they made their attack.

I had time only to cast a brief glance at the
shocking scene before me; to see Mr. Light,
who, although wounded in the left arm, was
with his right swimming out into the river, about
a hundred yards from shore; the dead body
of the stranger lying just in the edge of the
water; Mrs. Coleman about two rods out in the
river, her clothes spread over the water and
with her head near its surface, apparently float
ing, and the desolate canoe slowly descending
with the current, when the Indian who had
taken me prisoner and who still held my hand
led me off; and followed by his companion,
whose tomahawk was extended almost over my
head, soon began to climb the high hill bor
dering the Ohio.

Crossing the road a short distance we stopped
a few moments on the hillside ; the Indians, cast
ing their keen glances around them and listen-

45

an Captiiritp

ing intently as if hearing some sound indicative
of danger, then, apparently satisfied that they
were undiscovered, resumed their retreat and
quickly gaining the top of the hill, ran off in a
northerly direction at the height of my speed,
one of them still holding me by my hand, the
other following with his uplifted tomahawk.

Having run, as I judged, about four miles,
discovering my feet bare (for I had soon after
leaving Cincinnati thrown my shoes into the
canoe) my conductor, whom I now regarded as
my master, supplied me with a pair of moccasins
and seemed much pleased when in return for
them I gave him my pocket handkerchief, which
he received as a mark of gratitude. To the
other Indian, who had now put his tomahawk in
his belt, fearing that I might have excited his
jealousy I presented my hat, which at first as
worthless he dashed on the ground; then, in
stantly picking it up, thinking, no doubt, it
might direct pursuit, carried it in his hand
until evening when he burned it. Relaxing
our speed (although the long strides of the
Indians kept me in a continual trot) and still
pursuing a northerly course, about an hour
before sunset, descending a high hill, we
reached a small stream running in a westerly
direction, and which I have since believed to be
the rivulet and hill adjoining Sharon. Entering
this stream we waded up it about half a mile,
the leading Indian directing me to step in his
track while the other followed treading in mine;

46

of <©. ;f¥U fencer

then leaving it and traveling about a mile
farther north, encamped at sunset on a low
point of thick underwood near a rivulet.

Here, while one Indian kindled a fire the
other went in pursuit of game, and soon re
turned with a raccoon, which he had killed with
his rifle, proceeded to dress it by singeing off
the hair, then dividing it, broiled it on the fire.
The Indians ate voraciously, but being exceed
ingly weary I could eat very little; besides I
had just witnessed a most sickening scene, cal
culated for a time to destroy all relish for food.
While my captor was dressing the raccoon for
supper I had seen the other Indian, whom I shall
now call by his name, Wawpawmawquaw or
White Loon, drawing from its sheath his large
brass-handled knife and cutting off the limb of
a small grub near the body, take from his bullet
pouch the black scalp recently torn from the
head of the unfortunate white man, and cutting
a small hole near its edge and hanging it on the
stump of the severed limb deliberately and care
fully scrape off the thick fat ; then, forming a
small hoop about six inches in diameter, with a
thread of deer's sinew stretch the scalp within
it as if he had been preparing to dry the skin
of an animal. Having finished their meal the
Indians prepared for rest; first tying the middle
of a cord around my neck and extending its
ends around my wrists separately, they spread a
blanket on the ground and ordered me to lie
down; then, lying down on each side of me,

47

an Captiiritp

passing the ends of the cord under their bodies
and covering themselves with the remaining
blanket, soon sunk into a profound sleep.

For some time I lay ruminating on the sad
events of the past day, my mind now filled with
fearful apprehensions of the future and now
"stung with the thought of home/' to which I
feared I should never return. Here, as I
thought of my beloved parents and affectionate
sisters and felt for the moment that I should
never again behold them, tears of bitter regret
flowed plentifully, and scarcely could I repress
my sobs; then, as for a moment a ray of hope
shone through the gloom, my soul became more
tranquil and I began to revolve in my mind the
means and the probabilities of escape; over
come at length with fatigue, in deep sleep I
soon forgot all my sorrows.

48

CHAPTER IV

TO me it has ever seemed almost incredi
ble that Mrs. Coleman, after jumping out
of the canoe into the river, should have
floated quite down to Cincinnati, and there,
being taken out of the water, have communi
cated the bloody event of that day and the news
of my captivity; but the fact has been often de
clared by herself and asserted by others of un
doubted veracity, some of whom it is said had
aided in saving her.12 I have been told, how
ever, that the first news of my captivity was
communicated by Mr. Light, who on seeing the
Indians retreat swam to the shore, and making
the best of his way to Fort Washington reported
the fact. The commanding officer immediately

12The apparent incredibility of Mrs. Coleman's
exploit as here set forth was recognized by other con
temporaries than Spencer. A note in the historical
sketch published in the Cincinnati Directory tor 1819,
after stating that without any exertion on her part
Mrs. Coleman floated between one and two miles,
offers this explanation : ' ' It is supposed she was borne
up by her dress, which according to the fashion of
that time, consisted of a stuifed quilt and other buoy
ant robes." In the Draper Mss. of the Wisconsin
Historical Library a somewhat more prosaic account
of Mrs. Coleman's feat is given. It represents that
after drifting about 1 00 yards she was caught on a
snag, from which predicament she was rescued by
some of her Columbia neighbors. This story was
told to Dr. Draper in 1839 by an old resident of
Columbia.

49

dispatched an express to my father, announcing
the painful occurrence and proposing to send
out a small force of regulars. While the news
was spreading, a number of the inhabitants of
Columbia soon assembled, prepared and anx
ious to pursue the Indians; but my father,
apprehending that finding themselves pursued
and unable to carry me off, the Indians would
instantly kill me, returned by the express a re
quest that no troops should be sent after them;
then with some difficulty dissuading his neigh
bors from their purposed pursuit, obtained the
promise that they would proceed no farther
than the spot where the dead man still lay, and
where I was taken prisoner.

To describe the feelings of my parents when
the news of my captivity reached them would
for me be impossible. To be bereaved of an
only son, and the youngest of a once numerous
family of whom but six were living, would by
death under ordinary circumstances have been
a severe affliction. Had I been found dead,
inhumanly scalped and mangled, on the beach
by the side of my unfortunate companion, the
shock though powerful would have gradually
subsided, and the violence of grief would
with time have abated; but that I should be
carried away captive by the Indians, the cruel,
barbarous savages, was to my parents and
especially to my mother almost insupportable.
Often; when she thought of me, she fancied
she saw me fainting with fatigue or famishing

50

of <©. JttL

with hunger or pining with disease; and some
times her terrified imagination represented me
falling by the knife or sinking under the stroke
of the tomahawk or expiring at the stake in
the flames, under the most cruel tortures.
Nor was she relieved from these distressing
apprehensions and this painful state of sus
pense until some time in November following
my captivity, when certain information was
received from the commanding officer at Post
Vincennes that I was then living, and had been
seen at the Indian village near the mouth of
Auglaize only a few weeks before by the late
Captain Wells (Indian agent, who was killed
by the Indians at the capture of Chicago, in
the late war with Great Britain), then a prisoner
at large among the Indians.13

13Captain William Wells, son of a prominent Ken
tucky family, was, like Spencer, carried into captivity
as a boy by the Indians. Unlike Spencer, however,
Wells was not rescued therefrom. He grew up among
the Indians, married a daughter of the noted chief,
Little Turtle, and became noted for his prowess as
a warrior. He took part in St. Glair's defeat, and
there is no inherent improbability in the story that he
slew several of the Americans on this occasion. Not
long after, however, he decided to abandon his Indian
life and rejoin his native race. His knowledge of
the Indians made him a valuable addition to the
white ranks, and he served as chief of scouts in
Wayne's campaign of 1794. Notwithstanding his de
sertion of them, the red men continued to hold him in
esteem, and at the Treaty of Greenville which closed
this period of Indian warfare the Miami especially re
quested that Wells be sent among them as Indian

51

With the dawn of the morning of the eighth
of July the Indians awoke, and untying the
cord with which I was bound we all arose.
Our scanty breakfast was soon made from the
remains of the raccoon which had furnished
our supper; our baggage, consisting of two
blankets, a bridle, a cord, and a scalp was
shouldered, the priming of the rifles was ex
amined, and before the sun rose we were
marching in single file, my master in front,
myself in the center, and the White Loon
bringing up the rear, in the direct course of
the Shawnee villages. The morning of this
day was very pleasant: the sky was clear and
the air balmy and refreshing; the ground, less
broken and hilly, was covered with verdure;
the tall woods through which we passed were
beautiful, and but for the condition in which I
was, a captive whose every step bore him
farther from friends and home, I should have
been delighted. As it was, however, my mind
by degrees became more cheerful and my
spirits began to resume their native elasticity.

About noon this day, passing along the east
side of a hill beyond which there appeared to be
a large opening, the Indians moved cautiously,
half bent and with trailed rifles. Proceeding

agent. Thereafter his home was at Fort Wayne
until he met his death in 1812 in a vain effort to
rescue the doomed Fort Dearborn garrison from im
pending destruction. For a fuller account of Wells'
career and death, see the editor's Chicago and the
Old Northwest, 224-28.

52

of

about half a mile we halted in a deep ravine,
when White Loon, taking the bridle and pur
suing a westerly course down the hollow, soon
disappeared. In about ten minutes, however,
he returned, mounted on a fine cream-colored
horse which he had just stolen, and taking me
up behind him trotted off several miles, the
other Indian following, until coming to a thick
undergrowth we slackened our pace into a
brisk walk. Here we found a faint trace which,
pursuing a few miles, led us into a plain path
which I afterwards learned was the Indians'
war path.

The Indians seemed highly pleased with
their late acquisition, riding by turns the
spirited animal, and, occasionally taking me
behind them, greatly relieved me from fatigue.
But, alas! how uncertain are the comforts of
this world ! About the middle of the afternoon
the horse suddenly became dull and seemingly
sullen, so that with difficulty he could be urged
forward. At length he stopped short, when in
vain did the White Loon on foot apply the
hickory: the horse only stood and kicked. In
vain did the other Indian, dismounting, en
deavor to lead him forward; he would proceed
no farther. He had been violently attacked
with either bots or colic, and now lying sud
denly began to roll and groan, sometimes
struggling with every limb and sometimes dash
ing his head against the ground. The Indians
stood over him, now beating him severely and

53

Cajrtiiritp

now talking to him in Indian as if expostulating
with him or threatening him with vengeance in
case of his remaining stubborn; at length my
master, seizing his rifle as if to shoot him, be
gan in broken English to curse him, and after
loading the poor animal with all the oppro
brious epithets he could think of, left him lying
in the path.

We encamped this evening about sunset in
a low rich bottom near a beautiful stream;
where having made a fire and roasted part of
a young fawn which White Loon a few min
utes before had killed, we ate a very hearty
supper, though without salt or bread, neither
of which did we taste until we arrived at the
Indian villages. After supper, taking a small
piece of tobacco and cutting it fine by passing
the edge of his knife between his forefinger
and thumb, receiving it as thus prepared into
the palm of his left hand, the White Loon with
great solemnity and apparent devotion sprinkled
a few grains of it on the coals, an offering, as
I afterwards understood, to the Great Spirit,
moving his lips as if uttering some petition;
then, mingling the residue with some dried
sumach leaves which he drew from his bullet
pouch and filling the bowl of his tomahawk,
serving as a pipe, first smoked a few whiffs,
then handed the pipe to his companion, who
also smoking a few minutes returned it; the
Indians thus alternately puffing until the to
bacco was consumed, frequently filling their

54

of

mouths with smoke and forcing it through
their nostrils, closing their brief use of the
pipe with a peculiar suck of the breath and
a slight grinding of the teeth. The day had
been remarkably fine; we had traveled with
short intermissions from early dawn until sun
set, a distance of at least forty miles; and very
weary, myself at least, we lay down before
our fire under a spreading beech and soon fell
into a profound sleep.

But we had slept only a few hours when we
were awakened by the roar of a tremendous
hurricane passing only a few rods north of us,
prostrating the trees with a terrible crash and
carrying devastation in its broad track. Over
our heads the thunders broke with deafening
peals and the lightnings seemed a constant
sheet of flame, while from the black dense
cloud that was furiously sweeping eastward
it sent its vivid bolts athwart and onward,
passing the storm with the rapidity of thought.
I had sprung from the ground and, gazing on
the awful scene, stood motionless with terror.
I feared that the ' 'great day of God's wrath
was come," and felt that I was not "able to
stand "; I vowed to God that if he would spare
me I would dedicate to him my future life;
but alas! no sooner had the fury of the storm
passed and the thunder, now distant, ceased to
terrify me, than my vows to God were forgot
ten and the thoughts of the great white throne
were banished. Expecting every moment to

55

perish, I stood for some minutes unconscious of
the presence of a human being; but my terror
a little subsiding, looking at the Indians who
were standing near me I saw them perfectly
calm, apparently insensible of danger, gazing
with a sort of delighted wonder; and frequent
ly, as from the dense cloud shot some more
vivid bolt with more deafening peal, expressing
their admiration with their customary exclama
tion, Wawhaugh! waugh!

On the morning of the ninth the sun rose
brightly above the cloudless horizon and shone
upon a sky as clear and beautiful as if it had
never been darkened by clouds or torn by
tempests; and but for the bent treetops above
us, the fallen branches around us, and the
widespread devastation before us, one would
scarcely have believed that in the heavens now
so bright and tranquil, desolation and terror
had so lately held their empire. Breakfasting
early, we pursued our journey; but our prog
ress for the first half hour was slow and very
difficult, having sometimes to climb over the
large bodies of the fallen trees, or to wind
around their uptorn roots; and sometimes to
creep through their tops, interwoven with the
underwood. One who has never seen the
effects of a tornado can have but a faint idea
of its power and operation. Here, for at least
a quarter of a mile in width and many miles
in length not a tree had been able to with
stand its force; not only were the largest trees

56

of <©. ffi* fencer

torn up by the roots, but many one and even
two feet in diameter were twisted off, some
near to the ground and others ten or twenty
feet from it, apparently with as much ease as
a man would break off a slender twig.

Passing at length the fallen trees arid travel
ing on a few hours, on hearing the sound of a
bell we halted not far from a small opening on
our left. Here Wawpawmawquaw left us,
again taking a westerly direction, and in about
half an hour returned with an old black horse,
probably a packhorse belonging to the army, that
had given out and afterwards strayed off. Sus
pended from his neck by a broad leather strap
was a large bell, which was now stuffed with
grass to prevent its tinkling. This horse, though
very far inferior to the one we had lost, was
esteemed a valuable acquisition, particularly by
me; for my feet had now become sore from
walking, and I was delighted with the oppor
tunity of relief which riding afforded. Mounted
upon the old horse, a natural pacer, I now rode
very pleasantly, enjoying the comfort thus
accidentally afforded me without interruption,
for the Indians seemed not at all disposed to
share it with me.

Having halted at noon and taken some re
freshment we traveled on until about six
o'clock, when passing along the side of a
ridge into a low bottom, we stopped on the
south bank of a beautiful stream (which I have
since been told by the White Loon is Buck

57

€f)e

Creek) in the edge of a grove covering both
banks of the stream, skirting on one side a
small natural meadow of a few acres and on
the other a large prairie extending a mile or
two north and west. Here, determined to re
main until the next day, the Indians proceeded
to hopple the horse, and unstopping his bell
turned him out to graze. Next, intending to
secure me, they ordered me to sit down with
my back against a small tree; then taking their
cord, tying it first to the tree, passing it around
my neck, and then with a knot around my
wrists separately, extending my arms obliquely
on each side they fastened one end of it to a
stake driven into the ground and the other to a
root in the bank of the stream; then placing a
large piece of bark over me to shelter me from
the sun, went out to hunt.

Being left alone, my thoughts alternately
occupied with tender recollections of my home
and a painful consciousness of my wretched
condition, sometimes revolving in my mind the
probability of escape, then rejecting the thought
as chimerical, an hour had passed away. I now
began to think seriously of making my escape
and after a few minutes determined if possible
to effect it . Being a firm believer in an overruling
Providence and in the concern of God for the
welfare of his creatures, I first addressed myself
to Him and never did I utter a more sincere
and fervent prayer, supplicating His mercy and
imploring His aid, and promising that if He

58

of <©,

would deliver me from the hands of the savages
and restore me to my beloved parents I would
serve Him the residue of my days "in truth
with all my heart." Believing, too, in the use of
means, I immediately began to exert my own
powers. Seizing the cord with which I was
bound I first pulled it violently with my right
hand, attempting to break it or detach it from
the root to which it was fastened; failing in
this effort I next laid hold of it with my left,
endeavoring to pull down the stake to which it
was tied. While trying to effect this, looking
at the stake over my left hand I discovered
that the cord was tied on the outside of the
cuff of my sleeve and, making the effort, suc
ceeded in drawing my arm through it; then,
with the aid of my left disengaging my right
hand in the same way, I soon set myself en
tirely free.

Picking up the bridle and thrusting in my
bosom a small piece of flyblown deer's meat as
provision for my journey, I soon found, bridled,
and unhoppled the old horse; and mounting on
his back and using the hopples (a cord of
twisted bark) in place of a whip set off for
home. From the report of their rifles, which I
had heard only a few minutes before, I judged
that the Indians were about a mile off in a
southwesterly direction, and that I should easily
return along the path we had traveled, unper-
ceived; for considerate for a child as I might
have been, the thoughts of home so engrossed

59

€|)e

my mind that the probability and even certainty
of pursuit did not enter into my calculations,
and I thought that if I could only get a few
miles from the camp undiscovered I should be
safe. Unfortunately, as it then seemed, I could
not urge the horse beyond a moderate pace.
Whipping him with the hopples until I was
tired, I threw them down in the path and sup
plied their place with a switch; but with all my
exertions, striking with my heels, jerking with
the bridle, and applying the switch simultane
ously, I could not force him into a trot. The
sun when I left the camp was about an hour
high, and as I traveled steadily until sunset I
had probably proceeded three or four miles
when, concluding to halt for the night, I dis
mounted from the horse and bending a small
twig by the side of the path in a direction
toward home, I led him a few hundred yards
directly off from the trace, up a gentle slope of
woodland into a very close thicket of small
sassafras, and securing him with the bridle
went in search of a lodging place.

About sixty yards south of the thicket, find
ing a large fallen tree facing the path and
having near its roots a hollow forming a shelter,
I determined to lodge under it; but being very
hungry and having no provisions for my jour
ney saving a small piece of meat, which I
thought I should more need on the morrow, I
concluded to make my evening's meal on rasp
berries, which grew here in great abundance.

60

of <©. ffi. fencer

Straying from bush to bush, eagerly picking
and eating to satisfy my hunger, I paid little
attention to my course; when, having eaten
sufficiently, I turned, as I thought, toward my
lodging place, but found after walking some
time that I was completely lost. I now felt
greatly alarmed; I ran about in every direction
seeking the thicket where I had tied the horse,
and terrified at the thought of perishing in the
wilderness, regretted for a moment my attempt
to escape. Happily, however, after wandering
about for some time I found the log, and lying
down under it, pillowing my head on some
leaves which I scraped together and covered
with my jacket, and devoutly thanking God for
saving me from the horror of losing myself and
starving in the wilderness and for all His kind
ness thus far, composed myself to rest.

61

CHAPTER V

THE sun had set with the promise of a fair
morrow; evening, mild and calm, had
followed him; the soft twilight, grad
ually deepening, was fast merging into night ; the
birds had chanted their vesper hymn and a deep
and universal stillness reigned. I felt that I was
alone in the midst of a vast wilderness, exposed
to prowling wolves and deadly panthers, and
my heart for a moment sank within me from a
sense of my utter helplessness and of my inability
to oppose even the barrier of a fire between me
and destruction; then the thought of home and
the hope of reaching it in safety banished my
fears and inspired me with fresh courage. I
had lain thus but a few minutes, now closing
my eyes to sleep and now opening them upon
the spreading tree tops, or stars faintly glim
mering through their branches, when I was
suddenly aroused by the cracking of bushes and
a noise like that from quick strokes on the
ground, and looking toward the path saw a herd
of deer bounding through the woods and swiftly
approaching me. Presently one of them sprang
over the log under which I lay; the others,
leaping between me and the thicket where I
had tied the horse, were in the next moment
out of sight.

Scarcely had I lain down again, when, hear
ing a rustling among the bushes at a short

63

distance from me, I raised myself upon my
elbow to ascertain the cause; but words cannot
express my feelings nor describe my conster
nation and dismay when, looking through an
opening between the roots of the fallen tree
under which I lay, I saw the two Indians
whom I had left enter the thicket. Advancing
immediately to the horse and laying hold of his
bridle, they stood a few moments, looking
through the small opening in the thicket facing
the spot where I lay, in different directions
evidently endeavoring to discover me. I had by
this time partially recovered my self-possession,
and fearing that if I waited for them to find me
they would tomahawk me where I lay, deter
mined at once to return to them. Instantly
springing up and putting on my jacket, I ran
to the thicket and with the mingled fear of
deserved punishment and the slight hope of
impunity uttered the truly childlike excuse, "I
have been out picking raspberries."

Methinks I can now see the horrible savage
grinding his teeth with rage, and with a look of
fiendish malice that almost froze my blood
raise his rifle to his shoulder intending to shoot
me . Were my mother ' s prayers now ascending
before the Throne? Was my father now sup
plicating protection for his lost son? Or had
the Father of Mercies said, "Lay not thine
hand upon the lad"? At that moment the
generous Wawpawmawquaw interposed, and
throwing up the muzzle of the nearly leveled

64

of <&* ffi. Spencer

rifle, saved my life. A brief altercation and
then a few moments' earnest conversation en
sued, after which, setting down their rifles and
cutting large switches from the thicket, they
beat me severely on my head and shoulders
until their whips were literally "used up." I
bore their beating, however, with the firmness
of an Indian; never once complaining nor en
treating remission, but not daring to make
further resistance than to throw up my arms to
protect my head. Often since have I felt
thankful that there were none other than sas
safras bushes near; for had the Indians thus
beaten me with hickory or oak they would
certainly have killed me. Having wearied
themselves in punishing me and having told
me by signs which 1 could not misunderstand
that if again I should attempt to escape they
would certainly kill and scalp me, we set out
for our camp, the White Loon in front leading
me by the hand and the other Indian following
on the horse, until we reached the path, when
we proceeded along it in single file.

If at any time I flagged a little, falling too
far behind the leading Indian, the cruel savage
behind me goaded me with a stick or strove to
ride over me; and after proceeding about two
miles, discovering in the path the bark hopples
I had thrown down, he sprang from the horse
and picking them up inflicted many severe
blows with them on my head and shoulders.
Weary and faint, I rejoiced when at last we

65

Captitoitp

reached the camp; but my satisfaction was
momentary only, for without stopping even to
secure the horse the Indians proceeded to tie me.
Passing a cord around my elbows they drew them
together behind my back so closely as to almost
dislocate my shoulders; then tying my wrists
so tightly as nearly to prevent the circulation
of the blood in my hands, they fastened the ends
of the cord to a forked stake driven into the
ground. I had often, as I thought, suffered
not a little, but my sufferings this night were
extreme; I could not lie down, and to sleep
was impossible; my head, bruised and swollen,
pained me exceedingly, but this was trivial
when compared with the torture I suffered from
the violent straining of my arms behind my
back; my ribs seemed every moment as though
they would separate from my breast, and my
shoulder blades felt as if they would separate
from my body. Forgetting the late signal in
stances of divine interposition, I murmured
against God, and in the bitterness of my soul
longed for death.

The night seemed as if it would never end;
but at length the day dawned and gratefully
did I hail the cheerful sunrise, when the Indians,
having eaten their breakfast and being ready
to march, came and unbinding me relieved me
from the severity of suffering. Immediately
fording Buck Creek (the eastern branch of Mad
River), here about thirty feet wide and swelled
by the late rain, rising above my waist, we

66

-M W 3MV1

of

passed on in a northwesterly direction through
the eastern side of a prairie, near to a high
woodland, about a mile and a half, and crossing
Mad River (an important branch of the Great
Miami) at a broad ford sixty feet wide, ascended
a high bank matted with blue grass, covered
with raspberry bushes and plum trees, and
exhibiting the appearance of having been once
the site of an Indian village. Here, the Indians
stopping a few minutes to adjust their blankets
and make a pair of bark stirrups, I availed
myself of the opportunity to breakfast on the
raspberries, which were abundant.

Traveling on in a northwest course through
open woods, over high rolling ground, about
noon we descended into a rich bottom and
halted on the bank of a small creek near a
fine spring. Distant from this spot a few rods
was a very large sycamore, hollow at the bot
tom and having on the side facing us an opening
about six feet high, barricaded below with logs
covered with brush. To this tree the Indians
immediately proceeded, and removing the brush
from before it and looking into its hollow for
a moment, returned to the spring, where making
a fire and roasting some squirrels which they
had killed in the morning they made their
dinner.

I had eaten nothing but raspberries for the
last twenty- four hours; I was very hungry;
yet the Indians offered me no food. I thought
of their late cruel treatment of me and of their

67

continued inhumanity. I looked at the opening
of the hollow sycamore, which appeared black
within as if it had been burned, and suddenly
was seized with the apprehension that they
there intended to burn me. Weak and faint
from want of rest, of food, and from the de
bilitating effects of a severe dysentery with
which I had been seized in the morning; stiff
and sore from beating and from confinement,
my feet swelled from walking and my legs torn
with briars, I was truly an object of pity. I
sat with my back toward the Indians ruminating
on my wretched condition and gloomy pros
pects, now begging for death to release me from
my sufferings and now shrinking from the
thought of its pain, its terrors, and above all
from that eternity beyond it for which 1 felt
that I was wholly unprepared. Soon, how
ever, I found relief in a flood of tears, which I
carefully concealed from the Indians, and
washing my face and bathing my throbbing
temples at the brook strove to assume the
semblance of cheerfulness. The Indians now
leading the horse out to the hollow sycamore
and removing the logs from before its opening,
I soon discovered the cause of their late haste
to examine it, and with that discovery dismissed
my foolish apprehensions. It is worthy of
remark that in their villages the Indians use
neither bolts nor locks, and that when they
leave for a time their cabins, either empty or
with any articles in them, a log placed against

68

of <©, JWU Spencer

its door affords ample protection to its contents
and abundant evidence of the right of possession
in its owner; a right seldom if ever violated,
even by the most worthless among them. The
same respect is paid, even in the wilderness,
to property known or believed to belong to
Indians of the same tribe or to those of other
tribes at peace with them.

If discovered, their property here had re
mained inviolate; and now, taking from within
the hollow tree an old blanket and pack sad
dle and fastening them upon the horse's back,
the Indians next brought out two large packs
of deer skins of equal size, neatly folded and
firmly tied together, and connecting them with
tugs of rawhide and placing them on the
saddle so that they hung about half way down
his sides, made them fast with a cord; then
securing between the packs a small brass kettle,
made to contain about two gallons and com
pleting the contents of the tree, we took up
our line of march. Providing me with a switch
and placing me next to the horse, Wawpaw-
mawquaw followed, ordering me to urge him
forward, and whenever he lagged touching
me with his whipping stick and pointing to the
lazy animal would cry, "Howh caucheeh!"
meaning that I should quicken his gait. This
employment gave me a little excitement and
helped to rouse me from a lethargy produced
by sickness and weariness; but from which
nothing could have effectually quickened me,

69

save the certain expectation of death the mo
ment that from any cause I should be unable
to proceed.

From the conduct of the Indians I suspected,
what I afterwards found to be the fact, that
after my late attempt to escape from them I
became the property of Wawpawmawquaw by
purchase from the other Indian, who now ex
ercised no control over me. This gave me some
comfort, as my former master (a Shawnee),
besides being an ugly-looking fellow and having
something sinister in his countenance, evi
denced a very cruel and savage disposition and
withal great meanness and selfishness; and,
indeed, to me seemed destitute of every manly
feeling; while Wawpawmawquaw (the son of
a Mohawk chief, now from the almost utter
extinction of his nation united with the Shaw-
nees), though in battle fierce as brave, was at
other times (for a savage) humane and benev
olent. His person, a little above the middle
size, was well formed, combining activity with
strength; his face was fine, his countenance
open and intelligent, and his bearing noble and
manly. True, like all Indians, under deep
wrongs he was vindictive; but while some of
his nation, deserting its ranks, fought on the
side of its oppressors, disdaining to aid his
natural enemies to crush the remnant of his
race, he remained unchangeable in his oppo
sition to the "pale face," bravely resisting
their continued aggressions so long as there

70

of

appeared to be the slightest hope of preventing
their further encroachment; then yielding to
the power of circumstances, submitting calmly
to his fate.

Having traveled since morning about thirty
miles, two hours before sunset we forded a
large stream (then to me waist high) to which
Wawpawmawquaw, pointing, said, "Miami";
and which from its course here, a little north
of west, from its long rapid, and from the
appearance of the banks on both sides, I have
since been satisfied that we crossed about two
miles above Sidney. We encamped in the
evening about six miles beyond the Miami at a
small creek; where, for the first time in thirty-
six hours making a hearty meal, I slept quietly
through the night and awoke in the morning
greatly refreshed.

In the course of a few hours' traveling this
morning, crossing a great many small branches
running in various directions and then passing
through a very extensive prairie, we came to
a stream running northwardly, and following
its course until noon halted by the side of a
small rivulet. Having no provisions Wawpaw
mawquaw went to hunt some, but soon returned
unsuccessful. Just at this time a large hawk
flying over our heads with a snake in its talons
and alighting on a tree a short distance from
us was brought down with the rifle, and being
dressed by plucking out the larger and singe
ing off the smaller feathers, and then boiled

€f)t Sto&ian Captiiritp

in our brass kettle with a quantity of milkweed,
in about half an hour furnished us a dinner of
flesh, soup, and greens. Even the Indians
ate sparingly; for myself, though hungry, I
found the hawk so tough and strong that I
could eat but a few mouthfuls ; as for the soup
and greens, without salt the taste was not only
insipid, but sickening.

About the middle of the afternoon we met a
small company of Indian hunters, the first
human beings we had seen since we left the
Ohio. Here, resting awhile, after making, as
I supposed, various inquiries about their own
families, Wawpawmawquaw related all the par
ticulars of their late expedition, describing by
the most significant gestures their ambush, our
approach, their firing, the fall of one man
and the escape of the other by swimming, their
taking me prisoner, and finally exhibiting the
scalp as a trophy of their exploit. This rela
tion was heard by the hunters with profound
attention, interrupted only at suitable times
with proper expressions of wonder or of praise ;
after which, purchasing of them for a small
silver brooch a few pieces of dried venison, we
resumed our journey, traveling near the bank
of the same stream (which I afterward found
to be the Auglaize) until sunset, then supping
on boiled venison, lay down to rest.

Still traveling down the Auglaize, about
three hours after sunrise on the morning of the
twelfth of July we came in sight of an Indian

72

of <©. ffi.

village, when Wawpawmawquaw, cutting a long
pole, tied the scalp to the end of it and elevating
it over his head raised the scalp-halloo, a shrill
whoop, which both Indians repeated frequently
until we entered the town. Here we found
all its inhabitants assembled; more than fifty
men, women, and children collected in front
of the nearest cabin, who, as soon as the first
salutations by the principal men were ended,
seating themselves, some on logs and some on
the ground, listened with deep attention while
Wawpawmawquaw with that gravity of man
ner and those intonations of voice peculiar to
Indian chiefs and warriors again told the story
of my captivity. He was proceeding at last
to describe the act of tomahawking and scalp
ing the unfortunate white man when a little
old Indian, suddenly springing upon me and
throwing me down with violence, gave a loud
shout, accompanied with many extravagant and
furious gesticulations, and vociferating (as I
was afterwards told) that he had vanquished
his enemy. Immediately all the women began
to scream and the children, down to the small
papoose, setting up a long shrill war-whoop,
gathered around me. I clung to Wawpawmaw
quaw, but young as I was I should have been
compelled to run the gauntlet through the
women and infant warriors had I not, from
great debility occasioned by dysentery, been
scarcely able to move faster than a walk.
About noon that day we arrived at another

73

village on the Auglaize. Here, also, the inhab
itants flocked out to meet us, and in like man
ner were entertained with an account of the
late expedition of the Indians and the story of
my captivity; but although the women and
children manifested a great deal of curiosity,
examining my dress and scanning me from head
to feet, none of them offered me any rudeness.
An elderly, noble-looking Indian, whom I took
to be the village chief, now led us to his cabin,
where his wife, who appeared to be a very
mild and humane woman, gave us first some
boiled hominy and then a little corn cake and
boiled venison. This to me, at that time
more than half starved, was a most delicious
repast. I ate very heartily and rising from my
seat and handing my kind hostess the bowl out
of which I had eaten, bowing low, gratefully
thanked her. She smiled and only said, ' 'Onee,
that is right, you are welcome/' or, as if
wishing to lessen the sense of the favor con
ferred, "It is nothing."

From this village we traveled leisurely on,
occasionally passing an Indian hut, and toward
evening stopped at the cabin of Wawpunnoo,
a tall stout warrior, a brother of Wawpaw-
mawquaw. His wife was quite a handsome
woman, delicately formed and much fairer than
the generality of squaws; she seemed to pos
sess withal a very amiable disposition, and
bore the churlish treatment of her husband with
a meekness and patience that would adorn a

74

of

Christian; although it was evident she felt
mortified that others should witness his unkind
conduct. By the by, the Indians in general are
not kind and affectionate to their women, whom
they treat rather as slaves than as compan
ions, compelling them not only to perform the
drudgery of the household, but even to work
in the field, it being thought disgraceful for an
Indian to labor. I have often seen families
traveling, and while the poor squaw, bending
under the weight of a heavy load, and the girls,
carrying packs or the smaller children on their
shoulders, were laboring along, the lazy Indian
in front might be seen with nothing but his
rifle and blanket, and the boys with only bow
and arrows or a reed blowgun.

This night for the first time since my captiv
ity I slept under a shelter; and lying on a deer
skin with a blanket over me, slept comfortably.
The next morning we breakfasted early and a
little before noon of the thirteenth of July, after
a journey of nearly six days and traveling about
one hundred and eighty miles, we arrived at the
point of the confluence of the Auglaize and
Maumee, or Miami of the Lake. Here, dis
posing of their deer skins to a British Indian
trader, the Indians crossed over the Miami to a
small bark cabin near its bank and directly oppo
site to the point; and leaving me in charge of
its occupant, an old widow, the mother of
Wawpawmawquaw, departed for their homes,
a village on the river about one mile below.

75

CHAPTER VI

COOH-COO-CHEEH, the old squaw in
whose charge Wawpawmawquaw had
left me, being in that advanced stage of
life in which we seek for rest and quiet, appre
hending no doubt from my squalid appearance
and diseased state an increase of her cares and
labors, at first received me with reluctance; but
surveying my emaciated form and examining
my scratched and festered limbs, my swelled
feet, retaining when pressed the print of the
finger, and my toes, from the friction of the
sand collected in my moccasins in frequently
fording creeks, raw and worn almost to the
bone, her pity was excited, some of the dor
mant feelings of the mother were awakened,
and she soon began to apply herself to my relief.
Having first effected at the river a complete
ablution of my person, she proceeded to wash
my clothes, in the meantime compelling me to
lie on a blanket for three or four hours under
the scorching sun until my back was one entire
blister; then boiling a strong decoction of red
oak and wild cherry bark and dewberry root,
of which I drank frequently, and in which I
occasionally soaked my feet for several days,
she effected in a short time a perfect cure.

She was a princess of the Wolf tribe of the
Iroquois formerly living on the Sorel. Her
person, about the ordinary stature, was stout

77

and clumsy; her features were rather homely
and her expression generally harsh and repul
sive, though at times when her thoughts were
withdrawn from the deep and weightier mat
ters of futurity, or when, no longer conversing
with the spirits of other worlds, she felt that
she was an inhabitant of this and resumed her
interest in its concerns, she was cheerful and
occasionally quite sociable, relating many pleas
ant stories and amusing incidents of her early
life. She was, besides, a sort of priestess to
whom the Indians applied before going on, any
important war expedition, inquiring whether
they should be successful; and from whom
they generally received answers framed in such
obscure and ambiguous terms as to confirm
and increase her reputation, even when an ex
pedition was most disastrous. Cooh-coo-cheeh
was also esteemed a very great medicine
woman, eminently skilful in the preparation of
specifics believed to be of great efficacy, but
whose extraordinary virtues were more particu
larly attributed to her powerful incantations
and her influence with the good spirits, with
whom she professed to hold daily intercourse.

Her husband had been a distinguished war
chief of the Mohawks, a nation formerly occu
pying the country along the St. Lawrence as
far as Lake Ontario and that bordering on
Lakes George and Champlain. This nation
toward the close of the seventeenth century,
or about the year 1670, confederating with the

78

of <©* Jft,

Senecas, the Oneidas, the Cayugas, and the
Onondagas, and forming what was then called
the Five Nations (since, by the addition of the
Tuscarawas expelled from North Carolina,
called the Six Nations) conquering most of
the nations southward and west of them,
claimed the territory as far west as the Mis
sissippi and southward to the Cherokee or
Tennessee River. Utterly destroying some
nations, of whom not a vestige now remains,
and incorporating others whom they had van
quished, they formed a powerful confederacy,
and besides, possessing superior bravery and
consummate skill in war, they were formidable
to the western tribes, in their wars with whom
they were generally successful. The Mohawks
were the early and firm allies of the British
and maintained their supremacy over the north
ern tribes until about the year 1770, when,
being totally defeated by the American colo
nists, they lost their ascendancy, yielded their
claim of paramount authority, and, reduced
and scattered, were in turn incorporated with
other Indian nations over whom they had once
ruled.

After this signal defeat and loss of the Mo
hawks the husband of Cooh-coo-cheeh with
his family, consisting of his wife, three sons,
and a daughter, had removed from the St.
Lawrence and settled at the Shawnee village
a mile below the mouth of the Auglaize. In
the victory of the Indians over a part of the

79

€f)e

army of Harmar under Hardin and Wyllys,
in October, 1790, in a furious charge made
against the regulars, while in the act of toma
hawking a soldier he received a mortal wound
from a bayonet, and dying on his way home
was buried on the bank of the Maumee about
twenty miles from the battle-ground.14

Soon after his death his widow chose her
residence and erected her bark cabin on the
spot now occupied by her; and having only a
few months before, at the feast of the dead,
with pious affection removed the remains of
her late husband from their first resting place,
interred them only a few rods above her dwell
ing, near to the war path, so that not only she
might enjoy the happiness of conversing with
him, but that his own spirit might be refreshed
from viewing the warriors as they crossed the

14The "victory" by which Cooh-coo-cheeh was
widowed was the second of Harmar's two battles with
the Indians on the Maumee, October 22, 1790. The
white force engaged consisted of nearly 400 militia
under Colonel Hardin and 60 regulars under Major
Wyllys. When the encounter was joined the regulars
fought valiantly, as usual, but the militia failed to
support them and they were beaten off the field with
the loss of many men, including Major Wyllys, their
leader. Spencer's report of the way in which the
Mohawk chief met death accords well with our knowl
edge from white sources of the conduct of the savages
on this occasion. They seemed to have discarded
their usual tactics of caution, and forced the fighting
with the whites hand to hand. According to one
narrator, "the militia they appeared to despise, and
with all the undauntedness conceivable, threw down

80

of <®. ftl.

Maumee on their war expeditions, until having
ended his probation and being prepared for
his journey, he should travel to the final abode
of good spirits in the land far west, abounding
with game, and enjoy all those several delights
which in the mind of an Indian constitute
heaven. Buried in a sitting posture facing the
west, by his side had been placed his rifle,
tomahawk, knife, blanket, moccasins, and
everything necessary for a hunter and a war
rior; and his friends had, besides, thrown
many little articles as presents into his grave,
at the head of which they placed a post about
four feet high, painted red and having near its
top, rudely carved, the image of a face; while
below was marked the number of scalps he had
taken in battle, scalps of all colors, of hair of
all lengths, which on some great occasions

their guns and rushed upon the bayonets of the
regular soldiers ; a number of them fell, but being so
far superior in numbers, the regulars were soon
overpowered, for while the poor soldier had his
bayonet in one Indian, two more would sink their
tomahawks in his head.*' A letter written from
Fort Harmar by Captain Jonathan Heart, six weeks
after the battle of October 22, tells of a regular
soldier who, "being surrounded and in the midst
of the Indians, put his bayonet through six Indians,
knocked down the seventh, and the soldier himself
made the eighth dead man in the heap." The details
of this exploit may be exaggerated, yet they serve
to reflect the opinion of participants in the battle
as to the extraordinary ardor with which the Indians
pressed the attack.

81

might be seen streaming in the wind, suspend
ed from a high pole bending over his grave,
where I once counted nineteen, torn from the
heads of my unfortunate countrymen.

The family of Cooh-coo-cheeh consisted of
a dark Indian girl (an orphan) two years my
elder and a half Indian boy about a year
younger than myself, both her grandchildren
by her only daughter, now the wife of George
Ironside, a British Indian trader living at the
trading station on the high point directly oppo
site to her cabin, a few hundred yards above
the mouth of the Auglaize.15 The boy, reputed
to be the son of the famous or rather infamous
renegade, Simon Girty, was very sprightly, but
withal passionate and wilful, a perfectly spoiled
child, to whom his mother gave the Mohawk
name of Ked-zaw-saw, while his grandmother
called him Simo-ne; the girl, rather homely
but cheerful and good natured, with bright,
laughing eyes, was named So-tone-goo, but
called by the old squaw, Quasay.

To those who have never seen the dwelling

15George Ironside, at this time a leading trader of
the Maumee Valley, was born in 1760 and died at
Amherstburg, Canada, in 1830. For many years he
served in the British Indian Department. He was a
man of education, being an M. A. of King's College,
Aberdeen. Of his humanity no further testimonial
than Spencer's is needed. For numerous contem
porary references to Ironside at this time, see
"Henry Hay's Journal," edited by the present editor,
in the Wisconsin Historical Society Proceedings •,
1914, 208-61.

82

of

of an Indian priestess a description of the bark
cabin of Cooh-coo-cheeh may perhaps be worth
the reading. Covering an area of fourteen by
twenty-eight feet, its frame was constructed of
small poles, of which some, planted upright in
the ground, served as posts and studs, support
ing the ridge poles and eve bearers, while
others firmly tied to these by thongs of hickory
bark formed girders, braces, laths, and rafters.
This frame was covered with large pieces of
elm bark seven or eight feet long and three or
four feet wide; which being pressed flat and
well dried to prevent their curling, fastened to
the poles by thongs of bark, formed the weather
boarding and roof of the cabin. At its western
end was a narrow doorway about six feet high,
closed when necessary by a single piece of bark
placed beside it, and fastened by a brace, set
either within or on the outside as occasion re
quired. Within, separated by a bark partition
were two apartments, of which the inner one,
seldom entered but by the old squaw, was oc
cupied as a pantry, a spare bed room, and at
times as a sanctuary, where she performed her
incantations; the other, having on each side a
low frame covered with bark and overspread
with deerskins serving both for seats and bed
steads, was in common use by the family, both
as a lodging, sitting, cooking, and eating room.
On the ground in the center of this apart
ment was placed the fire; and over it, suspend
ed from the ridge-pole in the middle of an

83

aperture left for the passage of the smoke,
was a wooden trammel for the convenience of
cooking.

The site of this cabin was truly pleasant. It
stood a few rods from the northern bank of
the Maumee with its side fronting that river,
on an elevated spot, from which the ground
first gently descending about one hundred
yards northward thence gradually ascended to
the top of the tableland bounding the narrow
bottom, extending about two miles above and
the same distance below. On the high ground
was a beautiful open wood, principally of oak
and hickory; while the bottom, with the excep
tion of about five acres above the cabin culti
vated with corn and a small spot around it, was
covered with bushes, interspersed with saplings
and a few blue and white asli and elm trees.

Both banks of the Maumee above the Au-
glaize were steep and high; that on which our
cabin stood was covered with willows, while
the opposite bank down to the point, being
swept by the current, here slightly curving
northeastwardly as it mingled with the waters
of its tributary stream, was entirely bare.
Immediately below the point the Auglaize,
running from the southwest and bending north
eastwardly near its mouth, washing the eastern
side of the point, entering obliquely and min
gling its current with the Maumee, occasioned
in freshets a whirl and boiling of the water
in the center, and strong eddies on both sides

84

of

of the river; but in a low stage the water below
the point and for some distance up each river
was perfectly still. The Maumee, above the
point about one hundred and twenty yards
wide and directly below it a hundred and
seventy, is here, in its center, in the lowest
stage of water about seven feet deep; although
its depth where it has a current is ordinarily
not more than three. It abounds with excellent
fish, which the Indians generally take with a
gig or shoot with arrows and sometimes with
rifle balls; but in this latter method of taking
them, requiring great judgment and a prac
ticed eye, they are rarely successful, partic
ularly where the water is deep and very clear;
the fish seeming to be within a few inches of
the surface when he is at the same time so far
below it that the ball, flattening, does not
reach him.

On the south side of the Maumee for some
distance below the mouth and extending more
than a mile up the Auglaize to an Indian vil
lage, the low rich bottom, about three-quarters
of a mile in width, was one entire field covered
with corn, which, being in tassel, presented a
beautiful appearance. It is, perhaps, not gen
erally known that formerly the Indian women
inhabiting large villages wherever it was prac
ticable cultivated portions of the same field,
separated from each other only by spaces of a
few feet, and varying in size according to the
number and strength of their families; seldom

85

€|)e

raising corn as an article of commerce, but
merely to furnish bread for their own subsist
ence. Around these large fields they made no
inclosures; nor, indeed, having no cattle, hogs,
nor sheep, were fences necessary. As for their
few horses, they were either driven out into
the woods or secured near their cabins, and
having bells on, were easily prevented from
trespassing by the boys, whose duty it was,
by turns, while amusing themselves with their
bows and arrows, to protect the fields.

I had lived in my new habitation about a
week; and having given up all hope of escap
ing, which I now considered impossible, began
to regard it as my future home. True, the
home from which I had been torn and the be
loved parents from whom I felt that I was for
ever separated were seldom from my thoughts;
yet I strove to be cheerful, and by my ready
obedience to ingratiate myself with Cooh-coo-
cheeh, for whose kindness I felt grateful; and
who, with the blessing of Divine Providence,
having restored me to health, took some
pains to comfort and amuse me. Her son-in-
law, a respectable Indian trader, supplied her
occasionally with a few necessaries; while from
the Indians, who consulted her on most impor
tant matters, she received presents of venison
and skins and brooches, the common circula
ting medium among them. Her household
furniture consisted of a large brass kettle for
washing and sugar making; a deep, close-cov-

86

of <©. ffi. g>ymttt

ered, copper hominy kettle; a few knives, tin
cups, pewter and horn spoons, sieves, wooden
bowls, and baskets of various sizes; a hominy
block, and four beds and bedding comprising
each a few deerskins and two blankets; so that,
altogether, her circumstances were considered
quite comfortable.

Her dress like that of the old squaws in gen
eral was very plain and simple, consisting of a
calico shirt extending about six inches below
the waist and fastened at the bosom with a
silver brooch; a stroud or petticoat, simply a
yard and a half of six quarter blue cloth with
white selvedge, wrapped around her waist and
confined with a girdle, and extending a little
below the knee; a pair of leggings or Indian
stockings of the same cloth, sewed so as to fit
the leg, leaving a border of two inches project
ing from the outside and extending to the in
step, and a pair of plain moccasins. The form
of the dress is the same among the Indian
women of all ranks and ages, varying only in
its quality and in the richness and variety with
which it is adorned; its ornaments not being
regulated by rank or station, but by the ability
of the wearer. All the young and middle-
aged among the women are passionately fond
of finery, the young belles, particularly, having
the tops of their moccasins curiously wrought
with beads, ribbons, and porcupine quills;
the borders of their leggings and the bottom
and edges of their strouds tastily bound with

87

ribbons, edged with beads of various colors;
and frequently on their moccasins and leggings
small tufts of deer's hair, dyed red and con
fined in small pieces of tin, rattling as they
walked and forcibly reminding one of the
"tinkling ornaments' ' worn by the Jewish
women. Besides these ornaments, according
to their ability they covered the bosom, shoul
ders, sides, and bottoms of their shirts (some
times made of cross-barred silk handkerchiefs)
with large and small silver brooches, and wore
on their wrists and arms silver bracelets from
one to four inches in width.

Nor is the fondness for show confined to the
women; on the contrary it is even stronger in
the men, who in addition to the ornaments
worn by the women wear large silver medals
and gorgets on the breast, silver rings in the
nose, and heavy pieces of silver in the ears,
the rims of which, being separated from the
cartilage by cutting, are weighed down two or
three inches from the head. A trifling circum
stance, which I omitted to mention, may
illustrate their extreme love of show. When
captured my roundabout and pantaloons were
of plain summer wear, with covered mould
buttons; but my vest was of blue silk, double
breasted, with two rows of small plated sugar-
loaf buttons, which, attracting their atten
tion, the Indians had several times examined,
supposing them to be silver. On the second
night after leaving the Ohio, the companion

88

of

of Wawpawmawquaw, taking my vest, cut off
both rows of buttons including a strip of two
inches of the silk on each side, and carefully
folding them up put them in his bullet pouch.
Surprised at his conduct and unable to form
any idea of his motive in spoiling my vest, I
thought he was actuated by a savage malignity
merely, and felt not a little chagrined and in
dignant when, just before entering the first
Indian village, I saw him fasten the spoils of
my vest around his legs as garters, contrasting
strangely with his greasy leathern leggings.

It was now about the twenty-first of July,
and being a leisure time with Cooh-coo-cheeh,
principally, perhaps, to indulge her own incli
nation, and partly to amuse me, she took me on
a visit to the Shawnee village below us. We
were kindly received by Wawpawmawquaw,
whose wife, a very pleasant and rather pretty
woman of twenty-five, according to custom set
before us some refreshment consisting of some
dried green corn boiled with beans and dried
pumpkins, and making, as I thought, a very
excellent dish.

After spending a few hours with this family
we went to pay our respects to the village chief,
the celebrated Blue Jacket.16 This chief was

16Blue Jacket's village was on the Auglaize River,
a mile above its junction with the Maumee. This
Shawnee chief was one of the most active leaders of
the red race in its conflict with the whites for the
possession of the Old Northwest. He was one of the
leaders of the Indians in St. Glair's defeat, and is

tan Captiiritp

the most noble in appearance of any Indian I
ever saw. His person, about six feet high, was
finely proportioned, stout, and muscular; his
eyes large, bright, and piercing; his forehead
high and broad; his nose aquiline; his mouth
rather wide, and his countenance open and in
telligent, expressive of firmness and decision;
he was considered one of the most brave and
accomplished of the Indian chiefs, second only
to Little Turtle17 and Buck-on-ge-ha-la,18 hav
ing signalized himself on many occasions, par
ticularly in the defeats of Colonel Hardin and
General St. Clair. He held (as I was told) the
commission and received the half pay of a
brigadier general from the British crown. On

supposed to have been their principal leader against
Wayne's army at Fallen Timbers. After this defeat
of the Indians, Blue Jacket yielded and was one of
the signers of the treaty of Greenville. Blue Jacket
is a good example of the better type of Indian chief
tains.

17Little Turtle was born on Eel River in 1752 and
died at Fort Wayne in 1812. He was an inveterate
foe of the Americans until the Treaty of Greenville,
in which he bore a prominent part as spokesman for
his race. Convinced of the hopelessness of further
resistance to the whites, he pledged a religious ob
servance of the treaty, and until his death this pledge
was faithfully kept. Little Turtle's greatest military
exploit was the destruction of St. Clair's army in 1791 .

18Buckhongelas was head chief of the Delawares.
He was an active leader in the warfare of 1790-95, but
acquiesced in the results of Wayne's victory over his
race and thereafter counseled his followers to preserve

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this day, receiving a visit from The Snake,
chief of a neighboring Shawnee village, and
from Simon Girty, he was dressed in a scarlet
frock coat, richly laced with gold and confined
around his waist with a party-colored sash,
and in red leggings and moccasins ornamented
in the highest style of Indian fashion. On his
shoulders he wore a pair of gold epaulets, and
on his arms broad silver bracelets; while from
his neck hung a massive silver gorget and a
large medallion of His Majesty, George III.
Around his lodge were hung rifles, war clubs,
bows and arrows, and other implements of war;
while the skins of deer, bear, panther, and
otter, the spoils of the chase, furnished pouches
for tobacco, or mats for seats and beds. His
wife was a remarkably fine looking woman;
his daughters, much fairer than the generality
of Indian women, were quite handsome; and
his two sons, about eighteen and twenty years

friendship with the Americans. In his Tales and
Sketches from the Queen City^ (Cincinnati, 1838), Ben
jamin Drake tells several interesting stories about
Buckhongelas. Among others he relates that at the
Treaty of Fort Mclntosh of 1785 Buckhongelas was
present with other chiefs. The American commis
sioners were George Rogers Clark, Arthur Lee, and
Richard Butler. After the peace chiefs had made
their speeches the war chief of the Delawares, Buck-
honghelas, rose and passing by Butler and Lee
without noticing them took General Clark by the
hand and said: "I thank the Great Spirit for having
this day brought together two such great warriors as
Buckhongelas and General Clark."

91

old, educated by the British, were very intelli
gent.

One of the visitors of Blue Jacket (The Snake)
was a plain, grave chief of sage appearance;
the other, Simon Girty, whether it was from
prejudice, associating with his look the fact
that he was a renegade, the murderer of his
own countrymen, racking his diabolic invention
to inflict new and more excruciating tortures,
or not; his dark shaggy hair, his low forehead;
his brows contracted and meeting above his
short flat nose; his gray sunken eyes, averting
the ingenuous gaze; his lips thin and com
pressed, and the dark and sinister expression
of his countenance, to me seemed the very
picture of a villain. He wore the Indian cos
tume, but without any ornament; and his silk
handkerchief, while it supplied the place of a
hat, hid an unsightly wound in his forehead.
On each side, in his belt, was stuck a silver-
mounted pistol, and at his left hung a short
broad dirk, serving occasionally the uses of a
knife. He made of me many inquiries; some
about my family and the particulars of my cap
tivity; but more of the strength of the differ
ent garrisons, the number of American troops
at Fort Washington, and whether the President
intended soon to send another army against
the Indians. He spoke of the wrongs he had
received at the hands of his countrymen, and
with fiendish exultation of the revenge he had
taken. He boasted of his exploits, of the

92

of

number of his victories, and of his personal
prowess; then, raising his handkerchief and
exhibiting the deep wound in his forehead
(which I was afterwards told was inflicted by
the tomahawk of the celebrated Indian chief,
Brant, in a drunken frolic) said it was a saber
cut which he received in battle at St. Glair's
defeat; adding with an oath that he had "sent
the damned Yankee officer" that gave it "to
hell." He ended by telling me that I would
never see home; but if I should "turn out to
be a good hunter and a brave warrior I might
one day be a chief." His presence and con
versation having rendered my situation painful,
I was not a little relieved when a few hours
after, ending our visit, we returned to our
quiet lodge on the bank of the Maumee.

93

CHAPTER VII

A FEW days after my visit to Blue Jacket's
village I accompanied Cooh-coo-cheeh
over to the point, the residence of her
daughter. On this high ground (since the site
of Fort Defiance, erected by General Wayne in
1794) extending from the Maumee a quarter of
a mile up the Auglaize, about two hundred yards
in width, was an open space, on the west and
south of which were oak woods with hazel
undergrowth. Within this opening, a few hun
dred yards above the point on the steep high
bank of the Auglaize were five or six cabins
and log houses, inhabited principally by Indian
traders. The most northerly, a large hewed
log house divided below into three apartments,
was occupied as a warehouse, store, and dwell
ing by George Ironside, the most wealthy and
influential of the traders on the point. Next
to his were the houses of Pirault (Pero), a
French baker, and M'Kenzie, a Scot, who in
addition to merchandising followed the occu
pation of a silversmith, exchanging with the
Indians his brooches, eardrops, and other silver
ornaments at an enormous profit for skins and
furs.19 Still farther up were several other fam-

19This was John Kinzie, who in 1804 settled at
Chicago and has since come to be popularly known
as the "father'* of the inland metropolis. Two years
before this Kinzie was located at Miamitown (modern
Fort Wayne). "Henry Hay's Journal," already

95

ian Captitoirp

ilies of French and English; and two American
prisoners, Henry Ball, a soldier taken at St.
Glair's defeat, and his wife, Polly Meadows,
captured at the same time, were allowed to live
here and by labor to pay their masters the
price of their ransom; he by boating to the
rapids of the Maumee, and she by washing
and sewing. Fronting the house of Ironside,
and about fifty yards from the bank, was a
small stockade enclosing two hewed log houses,
one of which was occupied by James Girty20
(brother of Simon), the other, occasionally, by
McKee and Elliott, British Indian agents living
at Detroit.

From this station I had a fine view of the
large village more than a mile south on the
east side of the Auglaize, of Blue Jacket's
town, and of the Maumee River for several
miles below, and of the extensive prairie cov
ered with corn directly opposite, and forming

referred to, contains much concerning Kinzie's doings
and manner of life at this time. An account of
Kinzie's career is given in the present editor's Chicago
and the Old Northwest, 145-52.

20As already noted, James Girty had assisted the
British against his native land during the Revolu
tion. At its close he established a trading house
at St. Mary's on the Maumee, at a place later
known as Girty's Town. After Harmar's attack
in 1790 Girty withdrew to the Auglaize, from which he
again retreated before Wayne's attack of 1794 to
Detroit, and, later, to Canada. There he died April
5, 1817.

96

of <©, fit.

together a very pleasant landscape.21 I spent
this day very pleasantly among the traders,
dining with Mr. Ironside, who treated me with
great kindness. I found him to be a very so
ciable and intelligent man, humane and benevo
lent. He seemed much interested in the story
of my captivity, appeared to sympathize with
me, gave me some useful advice and direction
for the regulation of my conduct, and a great
deal of information relative to the Indians, their
history, customs, and manners.

On the following day I was highly gratified
in seeing at our cabin my late townsman,
William Moore, who had just returned from a
trip to the Rapids about sixty miles below.
Moore was a stout, sinewy, muscular man, six
feet two inches high; active, bold, and daring;
combining the qualities and peculiarities of the
western boatman and hunter; one who in Ken-

21The junction of the Auglaize with the Maumee
was. like the modern site of Fort Wayne, one of the
leading centers of Indian activity in the northwest.
When Wayne's army advanced to the Maumee in the
summer of 1794 the leader hoped to deliver a telling
blow against the Indians at this point. The timely
warning of a deserter enabled the red men to flee in
advance of Wayne's arrival; but their villages, ex
tending for several miles along the river, with corn
fields more extensive than Wayne had ever seen
before "from Canada to Florida," were razed by
him; while, on the site of the British traders1 settle
ment at the junction of the rivers, Fort Defiance was
reared. From this fort the modern city of Defiance,
on the same site, takes its name.

97

ian Captitiitp

tucky would in former years have been termed
"half horse, half alligator' '; a practiced marks
man, who at fifty steps, with his rifle, "off
hand/' often ' 'drove the center " and seldom
failed to "cut the black": on the keel pushing
the first pole, and in running, jumping, wres
tling, and other athletic exercises having few
superiors. Fearless and lawless, he was gov
erned only by his own sense of propriety and
right, naturally good humored and obliging,
but when roused a perfect savage; and bold
and powerful must have been the man that
would encounter and overcome him.

He had been taken prisoner by Wawpaw-
mawquaw, his brother Caw-ta-maw-waw-quaw
(Black Loon) and three other Indians a few
months preceding my captivity, about five
miles north of Columbia on the waters of Mill
Creek, where he had been hunting. He had
just killed a fine doe, and having lashed it on
his shoulders had proceeded a few steps on his
return home when the Indians, who had been
watching his movements and waiting until he
should be encumbered with his load, fired upon
him from his right. One of their balls grazed
his right shoulder blade, another passing
through the carpus, or compact bones of the
wrist, rendered powerless his left hand. Spring
ing forward on the instant, for the first hun
dred yards even with his load he outran the
Indians; meanwhile, placing his rifle on his
left shoulder and throwing his wounded hand

98

of

over it, with his right cutting the lashings, he
disencumbered himself of his burden and in a
few minutes distanced all but two of his pur
suers. Gaining the top of the ridge and look
ing back upon the Indians, the foremost of
whom were several rods behind him, he gave
a loud whoop, and deridingly slapping his thigh
bounded off like a deer to the foot of the hill.
Here, failing in the attempt to leap a creek, his
feet slipped on the edge of the opposite bank
and he fell backward into the water. By the
time he had risen to his feet and recovered his
rifle, which had fallen into the water, he was
overtaken by Wawpawmawquaw, who, leaping
down the bank, twice snapped his pistol at him.
Moore, meantime, leveling his rifle, also twice
attempted to shoot the Indian; but unfortu
nately its priming was wet, and he had no oppor
tunity to renew it. Clubbing his gun he next
attempted to strike down his adversary, but
his left hand being powerless his stroke was
easily parried. He now threw down his rifle
and drawing his knife was just about to close
in deadly strife when the brother of Wawpaw
mawquaw that moment reaching the spot,
interfered. Becoming faint from the loss of
blood, seeing the remaining Indians close at
hand, and considering further resistance or
attempt to escape useless, Moore picked up
his rifle and surrendered it to Wawpawmaw
quaw, who, extending to him his hand, received
him as his prisoner.

99

€fje

On his arrival at Blue Jacket's village,
Moore, being only a private prisoner to one
whose family had no manes to appease or
blood to retribute, was not subjected to the
disposal of a council; but custom immemorial
requiring that as a man and a warrior he
should run the gauntlet, an early hour was
fixed for the interesting exhibition. That day
soon arrived; and men, women, and children,
invited from the neighboring villages, flocked
to the capital of the Shawnees, anticipating as
much pleasure as we would expect at the cele
bration of our nation's anniversary. Here,
after gratifying their curiosity in examining the
prisoner, armed with clubs, switches, and other
instruments of punishment they arranged them
selves facing each other in two rows about
seven feet apart and numbering more than two
hundred persons, each distant four or five feet
from each other, extending three hundred yards
along the level space between the village and
the Maumee River. The chiefs and principal
warriors stood at the head of the lines within
a few rods of the cabin selected as the goal,
while the rest of the men with the women and
the youths, promiscuously occupied the other
parts.

Moore was now led out and stripped to the
waist, when the Indians, aware of his strength
and activity, tied together his wrists, for the
double purpose of hindering his speed and pre
venting him from retaliating on his tormentors,

100

of <©*

yet so as to afford him the means of protecting
his face. Starting a short distance from the
head of the lines, he soon bounded through
them; and breathing a few rhoments/feturnir^g
with the same speed, had reached th®»middle ef
his course when the Indfans/^*tirigtt»t: ffom :
his fleetness he would run through with little
injury (as most of their blows instead of falling
on his back fell clattering on each others'
sticks) half closing their ranks attempted to
obstruct his progress. Appealing in vain to
their sense of honor and justice, frequently
crying (as he told me) "Honor bright!'' and
"Fair play!" and finding that he would prob
ably be severely beaten, he undertook himself
to redress his wrongs; and so effectually did
he use his feet, head, and right wrist, kicking
some, striking down others, and with his head
overturning a number, that the rest readily
made way, and opening for him an ample pas
sage, amidst the shouts of the warriors he soon
reached the goal. Having passed the ordinary
trial he was now congratulated as a brave man
and by some applauded for his late resistance,
all but the sufferers being highly diverted at
his successful expedient to rid himself of a
severe beating.

Moore was a great favorite of Cooh-coo-
cheeh, to whose comfort and accommodation he
had largely contributed. But a short time be
fore my arrival he had added to her solitary
room an additional cabin, and now, preparatory
101

ian Captibitp

to the feast of green corn, he was engaged in
erecting for her a bark shed, closed at the back
and facing our cabin, a few rods distant on the
•west, and elevated about three feet from the
ground for the accommodation of her more aged
£?uests,rwh6, unable to take any active part in
them, might here witness the exercises and
sports of the day.

It was on a pleasant morning about the mid
dle of August, when the ears of corn, grown
to full size, were yet in the soft milky state in
which they are used for roasting, that the
three sons of Cooh-coo-cheeh, with their
wives; her daughter, with her husband, Mr.
Ironside; Captain Walker and some other
Shawnee warriors with their wives, and a few
old squaws, in compliance with her invitation
assembled at our cabin to celebrate the feast
of green corn. This is a festival said to be
similar to that of "first fruits' ' among the
Jews (and by some used as an argument to
prove that the aborigines of America were
descendants of that nation), when the more
wealthy and influential among the Indians of
the same tribe, ostensibly to evidence their
gratitude to the Great Spirit foi his manifold
mercies, inviting the members and relatives of
their respective families, feast them principally
on green corn variously cooked and entertain
them with different games and sports; usually
crowning their festivities with copious draughts
of "fire water " — either rum or whiskey.

102

of

Here, after the usual salutations at meeting,
when all were gathered and seated on the grass
and the pipe according to custom had several
times passed around the circle, a venerable
Indian arose and with much solemnity of tone
and earnestness of manner addressed them. He
spoke (as Mr. Ironside afterward informed me)
of the distinguishing favor of the Great Spirit
to his red children, the first and most honor
able of the human race, to whom he had given
the vast country stretching from the sun's
rising place in the far east to where it sets in
the great waters beyond the Rocky Mountains;
extending from the frozen sea of the north to
the boundless salt waters of the south; yielding
abundantly corn for bread, supplying meat and
clothing for their families from the buffalo, the
elk, the deer, and every variety of wild game
with which the forest once abounded; produ
cing spontaneously the most valuable medicinal
plants, furnishing specifics for every disease to
which his red children were exposed; of their
obligations to him for all these benefits, espe
cially for sending them fruitful showers and now
blessing them with an earnest of a good crop
of corn, and that they ought to evidence their
sense of obligation to Him by gratefully feast
ing on His bounties there provided for them
and by heartily engaging in the manly sports
and exercises of the day.

He then spoke of the "palefaces," whom he
represented as the first murderers and oppress-
103

€l)e

ors; ascribed their own sad reverses to the
anger of the Great Spirit for affording these
murderers an asylum on their shores; of their
duty to exterminate if possible these intruders
on their soil, at least to drive them south of
the Ohio. He said that their late victories
over the whites, particularly their signal defeat
of St. Clair, were evidences of the returning
favor of the Great Spirit; and concluded by
exhorting them to deeds of valor and to con
quest of their natural enemies as a certain
passport to the boundless hunting grounds in
the far, far west, "beyond the vast waters,"
where the Great Spirit would never "suffer
the palefaces" to enter. This speech was lis
tened to by all with deep attention, the auditors
improving each deep pause to utter some
monosyllable expressive of the various feelings
that by turns inspired them; but at the con
cluding sentence, as if actuated by one senti
ment, simultaneously springing to their feet
and uttering a shrill and prolonged whoop,
with great animation they commenced their
sports.

The first of these was running on foot over
a straight course of about one hundred yards,
in which the principal competitors were the
White and Black Loons, Wawpunnoo, and
Captain Walker; Moore not being allowed at
the beginning to join in their sports. And
here for the first time having an opportunity
of witnessing the fleetness of the Indians, i
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of

noticed that in running as in walking they
turned their toes in, hindering the full force of
the muscles of the leg; and that their move
ments resembled more the bounding of the
deer than the more rapid steps of the whites,
whose lower, forward efforts bore them only
onward. And I am satisfied that, although
from habit continuing to breathe freely, the
Indians may run longer at great speed, yet in
a short race they are generally less fleet than
the whites. Wawpawmawquaw, whose move
ments were lower and more rapid, won the
race; though Moore swore that he could give
him twenty steps and beat him in a hundred
yards.

In the wrestling that followed Wawpunnoo
(brother of the Loons) and Captain Walker,
both tall and powerful men, bore off the palm;
but in repeated trials with each other, with
various success, Walker was acknowledged
victor. Wawpawmawquaw, however, having
been several times severely thrown by Walker,
now insisted that he should wrestle with Moore.
To this Walker objected, intimating that it
would be rather a stoop to wrestle with a
prisoner; but the Loon insisting and at the
same time leading Moore forward, he reluc
tantly advanced to meet him. Their first
essays as is usual with practiced wrestlers were
but partial trials of each other's strength and
skill; but at length exerting their powers, the
contest was long and apparently doubtful; each

105

€l)e

by turns being raised from his feet, seemed
about to be thrown with violence by his an
tagonist or bent to the ground by his powerful
arms when Moore, availing himself of an un
guarded movement of his adversary, with a
trip of his foot and a sudden twist of his body
threw him to the ground, yet partially with his
arms sustaining him while falling, so that he
suffered no injury. Mortified at his failure and
more than half angry, Walker sprung to his
feet, and again closing with Moore, straining
every muscle of his body, put forth all his
strength. The struggle, however, was short;
for Moore being now excited, losing sight of
his former prudence, by a powerful effort
raising his antagonist on his hip pitched him
heels over head, stretching with violence his
whole length upon the ground. This occa
sioned a loud "Waugh!" from the other In
dians and no small gratification to the White
Loon; but Moore, perceiving that he had
roused the resentment of Walker and excited
the jealousy of the rest, strove to allay their
feelings, and by magnifying the strength of his
antagonist and ascribing his own success rather
to accident than to superior power and skill,
soon succeeded in restoring good humor.

It being now about noon, the Indians sus
pended their sports to partake of the splendid
feast provided by Cooh-coo-cheeh, consisting
of boiled jerk and fish, stewed squirrels and
venison, and green corn boiled some in the ear

1 06

of <&.

and some cut from the cob and mixed with
beans, besides squashes and roasted pumpkins.
For bread, besides that prepared in the ordi
nary way from corn meal we had some made
of the green corn cut from the cob and pound
ed in a mortar until it was brought to the
consistency of thick cream, then being salted
and poured into a sort of mould of an oblong
form more than half the length and twice the
thickness of a man's hand, made of corn leaves,
and baked in the ashes, was very palatable.
The guests did ample justice to the entertain
ment, eating very heartily out of the wooden
bowls in which their dinner was served and
which they held in their laps, using their own
knives to cut their meat, which they held in
their fingers, and the horn, wooden, and pewter
spoons of their hostess in eating their succo
tash; each man and woman as they finished
their dinner setting down their bowl saying,
"Ooway, nelah, netape hooloo"; literally, "I
have done; my stomach is full." Having all
dined and enjoyed for a few minutes the (with
them) great luxury of smoking, a small keg of
rum was produced, to the great gratification
of the guests, all of whom, both men and
women, took a hearty draught; when the men,
giving their knives and tomahawks in charge
to Cooh-coo-cheeh, arose to renew their
sports.

107

CHAPTER VIII

THE Indians are extravagantly fond of
spirituous liquor; not only the men, but
the women, when they can obtain it,
drinking to excess. Aware, however, of its mis
chievous consequences, they always before de
liberately commencing a drunken revel select
some one to remain sober, to whose charge
they commit their knives, tomahawks, and other
dangerous weapons, and whose duty it is care
fully to secrete and retain these until after their
carousal, when they shall have become perfect
ly sober; so that very rarely at their revels
more serious injuries occur than bruised eyes
or bloody noses. And when at their drunken
bouts brawls take place and blows and wounds
succeed, the injuries they suffer are entirely
overlooked when sober; all their acts com
mitted in a state of ebriety being ascribed
wholly to the "firewater."

On their way home (usually at night) from
their carousals, they always give notice of their
coming, singing or rather roaring their drunken
song, "Ha yaw ki-you-wan-nie, Hi haw nit-ta-
koo-pee," the notes of which, rather plaintive
and dirge-like, are more varied than their gen
erally monotonous tunes; and sung quicker or
slower, louder or less vociferously, not only
indicate the age and temper, but mark with
great certainty the degree of intoxication of
109

the individual ; one very drunk prolonging each
note, sometimes sounding as if the singer had
made a sudden lurch to one side or a stagger on
the other. If the Indian be one whom drunken
ness renders more savage and brutal, his wife
or any member of his family with whom he may
have been offended when sober now has a
warning, which is seldom neglected, to keep
out of his way; as he not infrequently avails
himself of the cover of ebriety to revenge with
impunity some injury he had received when
sober.

At such times and under sucrTcircumstances
it is peculiarly dangerous for prisoners (many
of whom fall a sacrifice to the brutal barbarity
of drunken Indians) to encounter them. Once
when in company with White Loon and Moore,
who were shooting fish near Blue Jacket's
village, I saw from the canoe the body of a
youth of fourteen (who with his sister, a girl
of sixteen, had been taken prisoners by the
Indians from some settlement on the Ohio a
short time after my captivity) who had been
tomahawked and scalped and mangled in the
most brutal manner by his drunken master,
who, not taking the trouble even to bury him,
left him to rot near the edge of the Maumee.
I myself have often been obliged in the middle
of winter, when the ground was covered with
a deep snow, at the well-known, dreaded sounds
"ki-you-wan-nie, " to spring from my bed and
seizing only a blanket, run and hide behind the
no

of <©. fti.

nearest log or tree or throw myself down in
the snow, where I have laid for 'more than
an hour, not daring to move until the drunk
ard had gone off, and once I narrowly escaped
death.

I had, unfortunately, offended Black Loon,
who some nights afterward, returning home
drunk from the Miami village a few miles west
of us, came so near to our cabin before I was
aware of his approach that I had scarcely
time to escape. Entering the door he inquired
for me, and being told that I was absent
struck his knife several times through the
skins on my bunk; then seizing a cat which
lay near him, threw it on the fire and placing
his foot upon it kept it there (the poor animal
squalling most piteously the while) until Cooh-
coo-cheeh, jerking it out, threw it into the
snow. This poor Indian, fighting in our cause
in the late war with Great Britain, was unfor
tunately killed near Manary's blockhouse a few
miles from Bellefontaine by one of our rangers,
supposing him to be a spy of the enemy.

At the close of the last chapter I left the
Indians, who had just dined, about to resume
their festive games; and as it may possibly in
terest some of my readers I will briefly describe
one or two more, ending the sports of the
feast of green corn.

The men now formed a circle, within and
near the edge of which one of the strongest,
in

lying on his back, held firmly in his hands be
tween his raised knees a piece of rawhide,
made soft by soaking and so slippery from
greasing as to require a powerful grasp and
a strong hand to wrest it from his grip. Fol
lowing each other at the distance of about
three feet, and moving several times around
the circle in quick time, with elastic step, sink
ing alternately on each foot, and singing, "A
yaw whano hiegh, how-wa-yow-wa" in one of
their most monotonous tunes, each Indian in
succession, giving a loud "whoop-haw," sud
denly stooped and firmly grasping the raw
hide strove to draw it from the hands of its
holder. Failing in this, or drawing it suddenly
from his hands, some not infrequently meas
ured their length upon the ground to the no
small amusement of the others; but the wrest
ing it from the hands of the holder or raising
him by it from the ground erect upon his feet
was held to be a proof of superior strength.

Dancing now began, the men moving in an
outer and the women in an inner circle, step
ping lightly, and rather gracefully sinking with
a rocking motion, first on one foot, then on
the other; or changing the form, facing each
other in lines, sometimes springing up briskly
with a sort of galloping motion, at others, with
their bodies bent forward slowly raising both
feet at once and bringing them down heavily,
uttering a "hiegh" at every jump, while an
old man, pounding with one stick upon a

112

of

small drum, sang at the same time slowly or
more lively according to the kind of dance,
regulating the steps of the dancers, who kept
exact time with the music.

It was now the middle of the afternoon and
both men and women with the exception of
Cooh-coo-cheeh were more than half drunk.
Moore had prudently retired with Mr. Ironside
across the Maumee, and I had withdrawn to the
corn fields; where, however, looking through
a small hole in the back of the shed I could
without danger witness the movements of the
Indians. They now drank more frequently;
some dancing singly, others in groups; some
singing, some whooping; and some quarreling,
until at length "uproar wild and deep confusion
reigned/ ' About this time Wawpawmawquaw,
smarting, probably, under the recollection of the
severe falls he had received from Walker, laying
hold of him and insisting on another trial of his
skill in wrestling, being unfortunately thrown
into the fire and severely burned, served as a
signal for bringing the festivities to a close;
and in a very short time, staggering off in dif
ferent directions, all departed to their respec
tive homes.

Little worth relating occurred for nearly
two months. In the meantime, having nothing
to do except to bring water and collect wood
for cooking, I had some leisure which I occu
pied in hunting with a bow and arrow, in the
use of which I became quite expert, frequently

€l[)e

shooting birds and at one time killing a fine
rabbit, which I bore to the cabin with no small
degree of pride and to the great satisfaction
of the old squaw, to whom it furnished a deli
cious repast, and of Sotonegoo, who congratu
lated me, telling me that I would soon become
a man and a hunter. Sometimes, too, I was
permitted to visit the trader's station on the
point, where I was always welcomed by Mr.
Ironside and treated with great kindness by
his wife, the daughter of Cooh-coo-cheeh.

It was on one of these visits in the woods
above the point, as I before related, that I saw
Wells, then a prisoner at large among the In
dians, who, having learned my name, inquired
very particularly about my family, their resi
dence and rank. The information which I
gave him he soon communicated to the officer
commanding at Post Vincennes, by whom it
was sent to Colonel Wilkinson22 at Fort Wash
ington and by him immediately to my father.
Through the influence of General Washington
letters were obtained from the British minister
at Philadelphia to Colonel Simcoe, governor
of Upper Canada,23 and an agent was dis-

22This was James Wilkinson, who later became
major-general of the United States army. Although
one of the leading men of his time, his dealings with
Aaron Burr and with the Spanish government have
left a cloud upon his reputation with posterity.

23Governor John Graves Simcoe was a native of
England and had been educated at Eton and Oxford.
114

of <&. ffll. fencer

patched by my friends through the state of
New York to Niagara; so that, while abandon
ing all hope of seeing again my home and my
beloved kindred, I was striving to become rec
onciled to my fate, active preparations were
making for my release and measures were in
operation which, under the blessing of Provi
dence, in a few months afterward resulted in
my deliverance.

About the middle of October the Indians,
learning through their spies that either an ex
pedition against some of their towns was con
templated by the Americans or that provisions
were on their way to supply the outposts under
a strong convoy, soon assembled a force of two
hundred warriors (Shawnees and Miamies)
under the celebrated Little Turtle and marched
to attack them.24 On their way to join the
Miamies, who had encamped near the point,
the two Loons and about fifty Shawnee war-
He entered the British army in 1771 and served
through the American Revolution, being a member
of the army surrendered by Cornwallis at Yorktown.
He entered parliament in 1790, but the next year
was appointed lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada,
which position he filled during the four years, 1792-
96. He was then sent to San Domingo, from which
place at the end of two years he returned to England,
where he died in 1806.

^This account relates to the assault by the Indians
upon the troops of Major Adair near Fort St. Clair,
November 9, 1792. Six soldiers were killed and five
wounded, and a large number of pack horses driven
off by the Indians.

riors from Snake's town and Blue Jacket's vil
lage halted near our cabin and sent to consult
Cooh-coo-cheeh about the success of their
expedition. The old woman immediately en
tered her sanctuary, where she remained nearly
an hour, during a part of which time, sitting
under the shed, I could hear the noise as of a
stick striking the sides of the catyin and the
beds and particularly the kettles within it; and
afterward a low humming sound of the voice,
at which time I supposed she was uttering her
incantations. Coming out soon after with a
countenance unusually animated, though with
a look of great wildness, she stretched out
both arms and then gradually bringing the tips
of her fingers together as if encircling some
thing exclaimed, "Mechee! mechee! mechee!"
which the Indians, instantly interpreting to be
"Many scalps, many prisoners, and much plun
der," reported to the party, who, flushed with
the confident expectation of success, immedi
ately proceeded to join the main body.

I had never before seen so large a force of
Indian warriors, and while I could not but
admire their fine forms and warlike appearance
as they marched in single file to the river or
stood erect in their canoes, with their rifles in
their hands, crossing the Maumee, I shuddered
at the thought of the lives that would be taken
and the hundreds that through their instrumen
tality would soon be made widows, orphans,
and childless. Young as I then was I could
116

of

not help at times looking on the old woman
with superstitious fear, mingled with awe. I
did not believe that she was divinely inspired,
but thought it more than probable that she
held intercourse with evil spirits; nor was that
fear and awe lessened when about the middle
of November the Indians under Little Turtle
returned victorious, having defeated a body of
troops, principally Kentuckians (or Semonthe,
as they termed them) near Fort St. Clair,
taking several scalps, a large number of horses,
and a great deal of baggage. Wawpawmaw-
quaw and his brother had each a good horse
and a number of new blankets; and some of
the Indians packed home tents, camp kettles,
and many other articles. The Shawnees gave
Cooh-coo-cheeh six blankets and several pounds
of tobacco, besides a small keg of whiskey
(part of their spoils) in gratitude for the aid
which they doubted not she had afforded them
in achieving their victory; while their late suc
cess, if possible, increased their confidence in
her supposed supernatural power.

The weather had now become cold and my
summer clothes, being not only too thin for
the season but nearly worn out, were thrown
aside; and a white shirt, blanket capote, blue
leggings, and waist cloth supplied their place,
so that I was dressed in full Indian costume.

Although the labor of gathering their corn
was over I found pretty constant employment;
I had now to make fires, carry water both for
117

cooking and drinking, wash the hominy when
boiled in ashes, and assist the old woman in
getting wood. One afternoon in December
Cooh-coo-cheeh, being engaged, sent me alone
to cut and bring home an armful of wood.
Taking the axe, the pecawn (a long strap for
tying up the wood) and our faithful dog, who
generally accompanied me, I went about a
quarter of a mile up the bottom; where, having
cut some wood and tied it into a bundle, I was
just about to place it on my back when the
dog, moving off cautiously a few rods, sat down
near a small tree, where growling fiercely and
striking the ground with his tail he first looked
up toward the top of a sapling and then at me,
as if to inform me there was game there and
to ask my assistance. Picking up the axe I
walked deliberately to the dog and following
the direction of his eyes saw on a limb about
sixte&»^feet from the ground an animal of a
dark gray color mixed with red, with a white
belly and round head, altogether resembling a
cat, but four times larger than the largest tame
cat, and crouched like that animal when ready
to spring upon its prey. Ignorant of its nature
and unapprehensive of danger I threw several
sticks at it to induce it to come down; at length,
hitting it severely on the head, it sprang to the
ground within a few feet of me when the dog,
instantly seizing it, a fierce contest ensued.
The dog, being strong, active, and courageous,
several times caught the animal by the throat,
118

of <©, $1. fencer

but was as often compelled to let go his hold,
so fiercely and powerfully did his antagonist,
drawing up his hind feet, apply his sharp claws
to his breast and sides. Indeed, I now began
to fear he would conquer the dog, whose ardor
seemed to have considerably abated and who
fought with greater caution; approaching with
the axe and taking advantage of an opportunity
when the dog again attempted to seize the
throat of the animal, I was so fortunate as to
hit him a severe blow on the head, completely
stunning him; then left him to his enraged an
tagonist, who soon finished the work of death.
The dog, though severely wounded, appeared
to be delighted; now standing over his fallen
enemy as if exulting in his death and now
jumping around me, wagging his tail with
pleasure. For myself, I turned the animal
over several times; marked his length, which
from his nose to the end of his tail I judged
to be about four feet; then examining him
particularly, for the first time suspected that
he was either a wild cat or a young panther.

Leaving my wood and shouldering my prize
I marched home, and with no small exultation
threw my load down before Cooh-coo-cheeh,
who, raising her hands with surprise, exclaimed,
"Waugh haugh-h! Pooshun!" It proved,
indeed, to be a large male wild cat; an animal
equally insidious and dangerous, according to
its size and strength, as a panther; and which,
but for the presence of the dog and my igno-

119

ranee of its nature and of my danger, might
have destroyed me. This exploit, with which
the old woman associated great courage and
daring, raised me very much in her estimation.
She heard all the particulars of the affair with
great satisfaction, and frequently saying, "Enee,
wessah" (that is right, that is good), said I
would one day become a great hunter, and
placing her forefingers together (by which sign
the Indians represent marriage) and then
pointing to Sotonegoo, told me that when I
should become a man I should have her for a
wife.

I had now acquired a sufficient knowledge
of the Shawnee tongue to understand all ordi
nary conversation and, indeed, the greater part
of all that I heard (accompanied, as their con
versation and speeches were, with the most
significant gestures); and often in the long
winter evenings listened with much pleasure
and sometimes with deep interest to Cooh-coo-
cheeh, as she told of the bloody battles of her
nation, particularly with the Americans; of the
great prowess of her ancestors; their chival
rous exploits and "deeds of noble daring/' or
related some interesting events of her early
life; her courtship and marriage; the great
strength, bravery, and activity of her then
young husband, Co-kun-di-aw-thah, and her
own youthful charms. Her memory seemed a
great storehouse out of which she brought
"things new and old." In almost all her tales,
120

of

however, whether tragic or mirthful, whether
of great achievements in the battle and in the
chase, or whether relating some diverting inci
dent or humorous story, she mingled many
superstitious ideas and spoke much of super
natural agency and of her own frequent inter
course and conversation with departed spirits.
To the beaver she not only gave the faculty of
reason, but the power of speech; and I shall
ever recollect the song, said by her to have
been sung by a beaver to an almost desponding
hunter, stayed by a freshet and half starved;
encouragingly telling him that the high waters
would soon subside and that beyond the stream
he would find plenty of game —
"Sawwattee sawwatty,

Sawwattee sawwatty,

Sawawkee meechee noo kakoohonny;

Kooquay nippee ta tsa;

Waugh waw waugh whaw,

Waugh waw waugh whaw."
Cooh-coo-cheeh took much pains to teach
me to dance; an accomplishment not so easily
acquired as from the great simplicity of their
steps might at first be supposed; grace with
them consisting principally in the motions of
the body; the action of their limbs being rather
adapted to facilitate and perfect these (and
not, as with us, at least in former days, the
chief exhibitors of grace and skill) and it re
quired much practice to combine both suc
cessfully. Having seen my elder instruct my
121

younger sister in dancing, I had learned sev
eral steps, particularly the balancer and single
and double chasser, and sometimes for the
amusement of Cooh-coo-cheeh I gave her a
specimen of the manner of our dancing. With
the slower and more simple steps she seemed
to be amused, occasionally laughing heartily
at what to her appeared so ludicrous; but
when I attempted a hornpipe, whirling around
frequently, or capered along in a double chasser,
so ridiculous did it appear to her, manifesting,
as she thought, such a want of grace and
dignity that usually with some marked expres
sion of contempt she put a stop to my further
exhibition.

Cooh-coo-cheeh was remarkably nice in her
cookery, requiring her kettles to be scoured
often and her bowls and spoons to be washed
daily, and nothing offended her quicker than
the appearance of sluttishness; and although
I stood pretty high in her favor I sometimes
incurred her displeasure by my neglect, par
ticularly by my want of cleanliness, as she
thought, in performing some of my household
duties. On a very cold morning about the
middle of January she had risen before day
and, intending to make some hominy, had
boiled the corn for some time with ashes to
remove its hulls. It was my duty to cleanse
it from the ashes, and as it had been long
enough in them, I was ordered to get up and
perform that duty. The old woman's temper
122

of <©* ffi. g>$tnttt

was very quick and when roused she was like
a fury; and by no means particular in select
ing an instrument of punishment, when her
poker was not at hand she seized a knife, axe,
billet of wood, anything within her reach, hurl
ing it at the unfortunate subject of her wrath.
Not rising immediately, she uttered her cus
tomary "Oogb!" followed by a stroke of her
poker, and not giving me time to put on my
moccasins hurried me off with the kettle of boil
ing corn and a large coarse sieve to the river.
The Maumee had for some time been frozen
over and through the ice, about six inches
thick, we had cut and kept open a hole for
the convenience of getting water. Placing the
large sieve by the side of the opening and
emptying the corn into it, I proceeded to dip
up water, pouring it on the hominy, which I
rubbed well to take off the hulls. I had not
finished my work when my bare feet, all this
time standing on the ice, were so pained with
cold that I could endure it no longer, and step
ping into the hominy was enjoying the luxury of
its warmth when the old woman espied me.
Calling me loudly by my Indian name, ' 'Meeche-
way," and uttering several "ooghs," she ran
down, furious with rage, to the river, and hurl
ing her poker inflicted a severe blow on my
back, felling me to the ice. Immediately,
however, springing up I ran off, leaving her
to finish the hominy, and did not return to the
cabin until her anger had subsided.
123

CHAPTER IX

IT was now near the close of February, when
sharp, frosty nights and days of warm sun
shine succeeding the extreme cold of winter
constituted what in early times in the West
was called sugar weather; a season always im
proved by most families, who drew their year's
supply from the sugar tree; and some made,
besides, quantities of sugar for sale. Taking
our large brass kettle with several small ones,
some corn and beans for our sustenance, our
bedding, and, indeed, all our household furniture
and utensils excepting the hominy block, we
closed our cabin door, placing the customary
stick against it, crossed the Maumee below the
mouth of the Auglaize, and packing our bag
gage on a horse proceeded four or five miles
down the river to a beautiful open woods, prin
cipally of sugar trees intermixed with blue ash,
elm, and poplar. Here Cooh-coo-cheeh had
for many years made her sugar, and here we
found a comfortable bark shelter with every
convenience for sugar making save kettles,
which we now supplied. I here found constant
employment dusting out and setting the troughs,
as the old woman tapped the trees; carrying
the sap, cutting wood, making fires, and oc
casionally attending to boiling the water at
night.

We had had a remarkably fine season and
125

Captiiutp

had been for several days employed, during
which time we had collected sap sufficient to
make, probably, a hundred weight of sugar,
when one evening near sunset as we were
quietly seated around the fire a messenger
came and privately informed Cooh-coo-cheeh
that the British agent from Detroit had arrived
at Auglaize, and having purchased me of Mr.
Ironside (who had been authorized by Waw-
pawmawquaw, now absent on a hunting ex
pedition, to dispose of me) he had been sent
to conduct me to the Point. Whether it was
that she thought that the sudden joy which the
news of my release from captivity would in
spire might prove injurious to me, or whether
she herself, having now become rather attached
to me, was unwilling to part with me, the old
woman received the intelligence (which she
did not communicate to me until the next
morning) with great seriousness, answering
only with a simple "Hul enee."

That evening she seemed more than usually
disposed to converse with me, and repeating
her inquiries about my parents, their rank in
society, how long they had lived on the Ohio,
and many such questions, asked me particu
larly of the place of their former residence;
and when I told her that they once lived not
far from the seashore, and near New York;
and that their forefathers were English, who
came from the Island on the eastern side of
the great salt lake, south and east of us, her
126

of

brow for a moment seemed deeply clouded
and the mournful tones of her voice betrayed
her mingled feeling of melancholy and regret.
She spoke of the first landing of the ' 'pale
faces " from their monstrous canoes with their
great white wings, as seen by her ancestors;
of their early settlements, their rapid growth,
their widely spreading population, their in
creasing strength and power, their insatiable
avarice, and their continued encroachments on
the red men; who, reduced by diseases, thinned
by civil wars, and diminished by their long and
various struggles, first with the British (Met-
a-coo-se-a-qua) then with Se-mon-the (the
Americans or Long-knives), were no longer
powerful; and that they would not be satisfied
until they had crowded the Indian to the ex
treme north to perish on the great ice lake; or
to the far west until, pushing those who should
escape from their rifles into the great waters,
all would at length be exterminated. She spoke
of the anger of the Great Spirit against the
red men, especially those of her own nation,
nearly all of whom had perished; and that
herself and her children, the remnant of her
race, would soon sleep in the ground, and that
there would be none to gather them at the
feast of the dead or to celebrate their obse
quies.

But her countenance soon kindled with ani
mation and her eyes sparkled with pleasure
when, changing the mournful theme, she ended

127

ian Captitutp

with a most glowing description of the beauti
ful hunting grounds, the ever-during abode of
the brave and good red men. These she de
scribed as lying far, far beyond the vast west
ern ocean, and as being ten-fold larger than
the great continent of America. There, she
said, the changing seasons brought no extremes
of heat or cold, wet or drought; none were
sick, none became old or infirm; and well do I
recollect that, pointing to the large poplars
near us, some of which were five or six feet in
diameter and rose eighty feet without a limb,
she spoke of the largest trees of that country
as being twenty times larger and spreading
their broad tops among the stars. Corn and
beans and pumpkins and melons, she said, grew
there spontaneously; the trees were loaded
with the richest fruits; the ground was clothed
with perpetual verdure, and the flowers on the
prairies were everblooming and fragrant; the
springs were abundant, clear, and cool; the
rivers large, deep, and transparent, abounding
with fish of endless varieties; the fine open
woods were stocked with innumerable herds
of buffaloes, deer, elk, and moose, and every
species of game : in short there was a paradise
containing all that could delight the mind or
gratify the senses, and to crown all the exclu
sive home of the Indian. The little Canadian
Frenchman, for such was the messenger, lis
tened with that attention which among the
Indians is inseparable from good manners;
128

of

frequently expressing his admiration and even
his wonder, though once or twice turning to
me and smiling incredulously, he said, "Ma
foil dat is grand contry."

We arose early the next morning, when the
Frenchman expressing his intention to set out
immediately for the Point, Cooh-coo-cheeh,
now for the first time communicating to me
the information he had given her on the pre
ceding night, told me that I should go down
to Detroit, cross the great lake in a big canoe,
and performing a large circuit arrive at my
home on the Ohio. She spoke of the happi
ness of my family, especially the joy of my
mother at my safe return; then of her own
regret in parting with me, having, as she said,
begun to regard me as her child; and con
cluded by saying that if I should grow up to
be a man I must come and see her. She was
affected even to tears as, taking my hands in
both of hers and cordially pressing them, she
bade me adieu. Poor Sotonegoo sobbed loudly
as I took her hand and for the moment deeply
affected, bade her farewell.

Leaving the cabin, I now followed the
Frenchman at a brisk pace; frequently, how
ever, looking back at its inmates, who were
still standing near it, until the intervening
trees hid them forever from my sight. It was
a very pleasant morning on the last day of
February, 1793, that I bade adieu to my In
dian friends. The sun, just rising, seemed to
129

iatt Captitoitp

shine with unusual splendor; never before, as
I thought, had he appeared so bright and
beautiful. I had been at first "as one that
dreamed, " scarcely crediting the fact that I
was no longer a prisoner; gradually, however,
as I left my late dwelling farther and farther
behind me, becoming assured and conscious
of the truth that I was indeed free, I was like
a bird loosed from his cage or a young colt
from his stall; to suppress my feelings or re
strain my joy would have been almost impos
sible. I laughed, I wept, I whistled, I shouted
and sung by turns; never had I moved with
step so elastic; now skipping over logs, jump
ing, dancing, and running alternately, while
the Frenchman (whose name I found on in
quiry to be Joseph Blanche) sometimes stopped
and looked at me as if suspecting that I
was more than half insane. By degrees, how
ever, this extreme of joy subsiding, I became
more temperate, confining the expression of
my happiness to singing and whistling, which
I kept up almost without intermission until we
reached the Auglaize, when, stepping into a
canoe and crossing the river, in a few minutes
we entered the hospitable dwelling of Mr. Iron
side.

This gentleman received me with more than
his usual kindness and congratulating me
heartily on my release from Indian captivity
introduced me to Colonel Elliott, the British
Indian agent, and to a Mr. Sharp, a merchant

130

of <©. fSL J^pettcer

of Detroit25 who had accompanied him to Au-
glaize. Elliott received me with considerable
hauteur, and with a look that spoke that his
noticing me was condescension; and although,
as I afterward learned, he had been sent by
the express order of Governor Simcoe to effect
my ransom and convey me to Detroit, yet, as
if such a service was degrading, he pretended
that being at Auglaize on public business he
had accidentally heard of me and actuated
wholly by motives of humanity procured my
release, for which he had agreed to pay one
hundred and twenty dollars. Having under
stood from Cooh-coo-cheeh that I was to be
sent home to my parents, I was not a little
disappointed in rinding, as I supposed, that I
was the property of an individual and subject
to be disposed of at his pleasure; however, I
soon comforted myself with the thought that
the same humanity which had moved him to
effect my ransom would influence him to per
fect the generous act by restoring me to my
friends, and that at the worst my condition
would be greatly meliorated. Elliott, I have no
doubt, had conveyed to Mr. Ironside the same
false impression, that my ransom was altogether

^George Sharp was a prominent Detroit trader at
this period. Notwithstanding the unattractive guise
in which Spencer presents him he is described by
William Robertson, a contemporary Detroit mer
chant, as being "of liberal education and highly re
spected. " He died at Montreal in January, 1800.

€f)e

his own private affair; as that gentleman,
equally scorning such pitiful deceit to magnify
his generosity, as incapable of trifling with the
feelings of one in my hapless situation, would
had he known the truth have immediately un
deceived me.

The wife of Ironside now kindly invited me
to breakfast; but Elliott, objecting to the
trouble it would give her, ordered Joseph to
take me over to James Girty's, where he said
our breakfast would be provided. Girty's wife
soon furnished us with some coffee, wheat
bread, and stewed pork and venison, of which
(it being so much better than the food to which
I had been lately accustomed) I ate with great
gout; but I had not more than half breakfasted
when Girty came in and seating himself oppo
site to me, said, "So, my young Yankee, you're
about to start for home." I answered, "Yes,
sir, I hope so." That, he said, would depend
on my master, in whose kitchen he had no
doubt I should first serve a few years' appren
ticeship as a scullion. Then taking his knife,
said (while sharpening it on a whetstone), "I
see your ears are whole yet, but I'm d~n— y
mistaken if you leave this without the Indian
mark, that we may know you when we catch
you again." I did not wait to prove whether
he was in jest or in downright earnest, but
leaving my breakfast half finished, I instantly
sprang from the table, leaped out of the door,
and in a few seconds took refuge in Mr. Iron-
132

of

side's house. On learning the cause of my
flight Elliott uttered a sardonic laugh, deriding
my unfounded childish fears, as he was pleased
to term them; but Ironside looked serious,
shaking his head as if he had no doubt that if
I had remained Girty would have executed his
threat.

Everything being now ready for our depar
ture, we took our leave of Mr. Ironside and
his wife (I with feelings of gratitude for their
kindness which I have never forgotten) and of
several of the inhabitants on the Point, who
wished us a good voyage and me a safe return
home; and seating ourselves in a small open
bateau, steered by Joseph and rowed by a stout
Canadian whom he called Baptiste, we soon
cleared the point and began to descend the
Maumee. Passing the cabin of Cooh-coo-cheeh
on its northern bank I took a last look at the
spot where I had spent more than seven
months of hopeless captivity and very many
hours of painful solicitude and fearful appre
hension. Nearly eight months before, I had
arrived there, weary, exhausted, half famished,
sick, desponding, and a prisoner, truly an ob
ject of pity; now, although ragged, dirty, bare
headed, and very much tanned, my looks were
by no means inviting, still I enjoyed good
health; and what with me seemed then to
comprise almost every blessing, I was free
from savage captivity. Turning my back for
ever upon my late residence, with tears of

133

ian Cajrtiiritp

gratitude I devoutly thanked God for my de
liverance; and as I thought that the ever-roll
ing current aided by every stroke of the oar
was wafting me nearer and nearer home, I felt
a pleasure which it would be impossible for
me to describe.

Of Elliott and Sharp I have but an indistinct
recollection: they were both men of only ordi
nary size, having nothing remarkable in their
appearance. Elliott's hair was black, his com
plexion dark, his features small; his nose, I
recollect, was short, turning up at the end, his
look was haughty and his countenance repul
sive; Sharp, on the contrary, had light hair
and fair complexion, with a smirking look and
a countenance indicative of shallowness. After
an hour spent in light and unimportant conver
sation Sharp, I suppose merely to pass away
the time, requested me to relate the particulars
of my captivity, with which, however, he ap
peared but little interested; often interrupting
me to make some observation on persons or
things as we passed down the river. He then
made several inquiries about my family, the
Miami settlements, and Fort Washington;
which leading to a more general conversation,
drew from Elliott many ungentlemanly remarks
and disparaging observations about the Ameri
cans. Sharp then observed that being so full
of notions of liberty and equality they would
make rather stubborn servants, and he thought
I would be no great bargain. "However/* he

134

of <©*

continued, looking at me, "I suppose you will
not have much employment for him?" "Not
much, ' ' replied Elliott, ' 'besides cleaning knives
and forks, blacking shoes, running of errands,
and waiting upon table. " With an expression
of disgust and indignation I turned my back
upon him. The truth was, I more than half
doubted his having more to do with me than
to convey me to Detroit. I asked no more
questions- of either of them and when ques
tioned answered as briefly as possible; amusing
myself with looking at the numerous fish
swimming in the clear stream or at the lofty
trees, with here and there an Indian hut or
village on its banks; and now listening to the
cheerful song of the boatmen as the one plied
his oar and the other his paddle, timing their
strokes as exactly with their music as a soldier
would the tread of his left foot with the flam
of the drum.

On the first night after leaving the Auglaize
we slept at a Wyandot village, and on the fol
lowing morning, passing the rapids, we landed
about the middle of the afternoon on the
northern bank of the Maumee, a few miles
above its entrance into Lake Erie, at a small
encampment of Wyandots. Here the two
boatmen with their bateau, leaving us, pro
ceeded to their home at Frenchtown; and here
Elliott, placing me in charge of the Wyandots,
with whom he had contracted, probably for a
gallon of rum, to convey me to Detroit, mount-

135

ian Captiiritp

ing his horse in company with Sharp, rode off,
leaving me again to the mercy of the savages.

The Indians, eight or ten in number, com
menced drinking pretty freely directly after
Elliott left us, and soon becoming half drunk,
began to sing and dance and shout and wrestle
as usual. Among them was a youth of about
fourteen, who, while I was sitting as a spec
tator on one side of the tent, came and pulling
me up insisted that I should wrestle with him.
This I refused, objecting to the great inequality
of our years and size and strength; but being
urged I at length consented, and as I was very
strong for one of my years and withal quite
active, in a very few seconds I laid him sprawl
ing on the ground. In a second effort he was
more successful, throwing me down; but the
moment I struck the ground, giving a sudden
spring I threw myself over him, and as he
struggled by force to get up held him down
until he asked me to let him rise.

Mortified and angry he now got up, and
seizing me by the hair and passing his finger
around my head, at the same time blackguard
ing me in broken Shawnee, said he would scalp
me. That moment I gave ;him a severe blow
in the pit of the stomach, which, while it made
him loose his hold upon my hair, nearly knocked
him down. I now stood in an attitude of
defense, determined to resent or resist any
further insult or violence; he did not now ap
proach me, but waiting an opportunity when,

136

of

supposing his anger had cooled, I had turned
round and walked a few steps with the inten
tion of sitting down, drew his knife and steal
ing behind me stabbed me in the back. He no
doubt intended to inflict a mortal wound, but
the knife, fortunately striking the lower part
of my shoulder blade, glanced down across the
ribs without entering the body, making an in
cision about an inch wide, and found, when
afterwards probed by a British surgeon at
Detroit, to be three inches deep.

An old Indian now interfered, and discov
ering from the blood that flowed that I was
badly wounded, stripped off my capote and
pressing the wound firmly, applied a large
quid of tobacco to its orifice; then covering it
with a compress secured by a bandage over
my shoulder and round my chest, effectually
staunched the blood. Early next morning (so
great had been Elliott's care for me) I was
confided to the charge of two old squaws, who,
placing me in the middle of their canoe, set
out for Detroit (about forty-five miles distant)
and paddling along the edge of the lake and
up the strait, arriving at that place on the
evening of the third of March, delivered me to
Colonel Richard England, the officer com
manding that garrison.

137

CHAPTER X

OLONEL England26 had been instructed
I by Governor Simcoe to receive me, to
provide clothing and everything neces
sary for my comfort, and to send me on to Fort
Niagara as soon as the navigation of Lake Erie
should open. He had, besides, been informed
about my family, and particularly about my rela
tives; and was personally acquainted with some
connections of my mother; so that from his
sense of duty as well as from a disposition to
oblige his friends I would have been assured of
a favorable reception. But independently of
these considerations, being both a gentleman
and a man of great humanity he received me
with much kindness and, regarding my wretched
appearance with sympathy for my condition,
followed only the generous impulse of his
nature in ministering to my relief and comfort.
After asking me some brief questions and

^Richard England, a native of Ireland, entered the
British army in 1766 and died in 1812 with the rank
of lieutenant-general. He was commandant at De
troit from 1792 until its transfer to the United States
in 1796. His administration here seems to have
given general satisfaction, even as his conduct won
the praises of the lonely captive boy whose narrative
we are following. Colonel England was a man of
great size, being six and a half feet in height. The
story is told that the Prince of Wales once inquired
his name, and on being told, exclaimed : * 'England !
He should be named Great Britain at least."

139

kindly assuring me of my future welfare, ad
dressing himself to Lieutenant Andre, an officer
of the same regiment (who, also expecting me,
had on hearing of my arrival repaired to the
colonel's quarters), said he committed me to his
charge, observing that Mr. Andre would of
course take pleasure in making the necessary
provision for me.

Mr. Andre immediately took me by the hand
and led me to his quarters in the same barracks,
only a few doors distant, and requesting me
to sit down, retired from the apartment. In
a few minutes a servant entered and set before
me some tea and bread and butter, on which
having supped, I arose and was retiring from
the table when two women, whom mere curi
osity, as I supposed, had kept standing at one
end of the room looking at me intently while
I was eating, now advanced, and each uncere
moniously taking me by the hand and leading
me out of the apartment, conducted me to a
chamber. Here, stripping off all but my shirt,
carefully throwing my clothes out at a back
window, beyond the palisades of the town,
and seating me in a large washtub, half filled
with water, they tore off my shirt, which had
fast adhered to the bandage round my shoulder,
before I had time to tell them I was wounded,
and so suddenly, inflicting for a moment acute
pain, as to extort from me a loud scream.
Their surprise at this soon ceased when I told
them that an Indian had stabbed me in the
140

of <©. j&< fencer

shoulder; and when they saw the blood from
the open wound running down my back, one
of them, alarmed, ran to inform Mr. Andre;
the other, with a rag immediately staunching
the blood, [proceeded] deliberately to scour my
person with soap and water, and by the time
the surgeon had arrived had effected a complete
ablution. On probing the wound, which he
found to be about three inches deep, the sur
geon pronounced it to be not dangerous;
fortunately, he said, the knife in entering had
struck the lower posterior point of the right
shoulder-blade, and taken a direction downward ;
but had it entered an inch lower or nearer the
spine it would probably have caused death.

From the want of clothes it was late next
morning before I could get up; but receiving
at length a temporary supply of a roundabout
and pantaloons from the wardrobe of Ensign
O 'Brian, brother of Mrs. England, and a pair of
stockings and slippers from one of the women,
I made my appearance in the breakfast room
and was introduced to Mrs. Andre, wife of
the lieutenant. She very kindly took my hand
and congratulated me on my deliverance from
the Indians; though she could not help smiling
at my singular appearance, dressed, as I was,
in clothes which although they fitted the smallest
officer in the garrison hung like bags on me.
Mrs. Andre made very particular inquiries about
my mother (whose maiden name was Ogden)
and my relatives on her side; and telling me
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€fjc

that she had been a Miss Ogden, made our
relationship to be that of third cousins.

This unexpected information gave me great
pleasure; for to find among strangers and in
highly polished society one who was not ashamed
to acknowledge as a relative a destitute boy, far
from friends and home, could not but be truly
gratifying. But Mrs. Andre possessed none
of the false pride of those who, governed
wholly by factitious circumstances, while they
"have respect to the man in gay clothing, "
feeling as if degraded by condescension to the
unfortunate, say to the poor, "Stand thou
there." She was kind and amiable, as she was
handsome and accomplished; and although quite
young, apparently not more than twenty, sup
plied to me the place of a mother. Her husband,
a brother of the unfortunate Major Andre,27 and
one of the handsomest men I ever saw, very
affable in his manners and frank in his dispo
sition, treated me with great kindness; and
after seeing that I was comfortably and, indeed,
genteelly dressed, introduced me to the families
of Mr. Erskine28 and Commodore Grant29

27Major Andre of Revolutionary fame had a younger
brother, William Lewis, whom the British Army List
for 1790 shows as a captain in the Twenty-sixth In
fantry. In the Twenty-fourth Infantry (Colonel
England's regiment) was a lieutenant, Charles S.
Andrews. Probably the latter, rather than Major
Andre's brother, was the officer who befriended
Spencer.

^This was doubtless John Askin, a Scotch-Irishman
142

of

(where I found boys and girls of nearly my own
age, who cheerfully associated with me) and
took pleasure in showing me the town, the ship
ping, the fort, and whatever else he thought
would afford me gratification.

The situation of Detroit on the western
bank of the strait connecting Lake Huron with
Lake Erie and about ten miles south of Lake
St. Clair, is familiar to all; though but few
here have any knowledge of what it was more
than forty years since. It was then a small
town containing only wooden buildings, but few
of which were well finished; surrounded by

who came to Detroit soon after the French and Indian
War. He served the British government as com
missary at Mackinac for a time, but was dismissed
from this service in 1780 and spent the remainder of
his career as a merchant and fur trader. When
Detroit was given over to the United States in 1/96
Askin, electing to remain a subject of Great Britain,
removed to the Canadian side of the river, where he
died in 1817. Several of his sons, the children with
whom Spencer played, served in the War of 1812,
and one of them, John Askin Jr., played a leading
part in the capture of Mackinac from the Americans.
The Askin family papers are preserved in the Burton
Library at Detroit.

29Commodore Alexander Grant was a brother-in-
law of John Askin. He had command of all the mil-
tary shipping on the Great Lakes from 1763 until 1812.
He was also for many years a member of the executive
council of Upper Canada, and in 1805 was de facto
governor of the province during the interregnum
between Governors Hunter and Gore. He died at
Grosse Pointe near Detroit in 1815.

143

high pickets inclosing an area of probably half
a mile square, only one-third part of which,
along the bank of the river (as the strait is
called), was covered with houses. There were,
I think, three narrow streets running parallel
with the river, and intersected by four or five
more at right angles. At the south end of the
town, adjoining on the west the second street,
at the ends of which were the entrances (se
cured by heavy wooden gates) into the city,
was a space about two hundred feet square,
inclosed on a part of two sides with low pali
sades, within which a row of handsome three-
story barracks for the accommodation of the
officers occupied the south side, and buildings
of the same height for the soldiers' quarters
stood on the west and a part of the north side.
The open space was occupied as a parade
ground, where the troops were every day ex
ercised by the adjutant.

In the northwest corner of the large area,
inclosed with pickets, on ground a little elevated,
stood the fort, separated from the houses by
an esplanade, and surrounded, first by an abatis
of treetops having the butts of the limbs
sharpened and projecting outward about four
feet high; then by a deep ditch, in the center
of which were high pickets; and then by a row
of light palisades seven or eight feet long,
projecting horizontally from the glacis. The
fort, covering not more than half an acre of
ground, was square, having a bastion at each
144

of <®.

angle, with parapets and ramparts so high as
to shelter the quarters within, which were
bombproof entirely from the shot of an enemy.
Its entrance was on the east side facing the
river, over a drawbridge, and through a covered
way; over which on each side were long iron
cannon carrying twenty-four pound shot, and
which the officers called the " British lions' ';
while on each of the other sides were plant
ed two, and on each bastion four, cannon of
various caliber: six, nine, and twelve poun
ders.

The fort was garrisoned by a company of ar
tillery under the command of Captain Spears,30
while two companies of infantry and one of
grenadiers of the twenty-fourth (Colonel Eng
land's regiment) were quartered in the bar
racks; the balance of the regiment was at
Michilimakinak and other northern posts. By
the side of the gate near the end of the officers'
barracks was a twenty-four pounder; and for
the protection of the east side of the town there
were two small batteries of cannon on the bank

30In 1794, Captain Spears was at Fort Miamis on
the Maumee, the fortification newly established by
the British as an offset to the American advance.
When after the battle of Fallen Timbers Wayne's
soldiers pursued the fleeing red men to the walls of
the fort and destroyed the adjoining houses and
property of the British traders under its guns, the
British commander sent Captain Spears with a mes
sage of inquiry and remonstrance concerning Wayne's
acts and intentions.

145

of the river. In the spring of 1793 there were
anchored in the river in front of the town three
brigs of about two hundred tons each; the
Chippewa and the Ottawa, new vessels, carrying
each, I think, eight guns; the Dunmore, an
old vessel of six guns; and a sloop, the Felicity,
of about one hundred tons, armed only with
two swivels; all belonging to His Majesty,
George III, and commanded by Commodore
Grant. There were, besides, several merchant
men, sloops, and schooners, the property of
individuals.31

I had spent almost four weeks very agree
ably at Detroit, becoming much attached to
Colonel England and particularly so to Mr. and
Mrs. Andre, who treated me with great kind
ness, and to the family of Mr. Erskine, who
were very friendly and polite to me ; and when,
near the close of March the lake being entirely
clear of ice; and when, though there was some

31The early history of shipping on the Great Lakes
is still shrouded in obscurity. Spencer's information
about the vessels at Detroit in 1/92 is perhaps as
authoritative as any we have. The sloop Felicity
had been on the lakes for at least a dozen years.
An account of a cruise taken in her around Lake
Michigan in 1/79 is published in Wisconsin Historical
Collections, XI, 203-12. The Dunmore was built at
Detroit in 17/4. According to an official return of
1783 she was a seventy-ton vessel, carrying ten guns
and twenty-five seamen. The same document gives
the Felicity as a forty-five ton vessel. Interesting
accounts of early shipping on the Great Lakes may
be found in the Buffalo Historical Society, Publica
tions, VI, 17-33 and VIII, 283 ff.
146

of <&. ffi. fencer

danger to be apprehended from easterly storms
it was thought that the navigation to Fort Erie
would be tolerably safe, orders were issued for
the sailing of the Felicity, I felt a momentary
regret that I was so soon to be separated from
these kind friends and acquaintances. Every
thing being in readiness and the sloop beginning
to weigh anchor, I took leave of Mr. and Mrs.
Andre, thanking them with tears for their
parental kindness; and so affected was I that I
could scarcely pronounce the word farewell.
Of Colonel England, also, who wished me a
prosperous voyage and safe return to my
friends, I took a very affecting leave, acknowl
edging with gratitude my obligations to him;
then with a small bundle containing a few
shirts and stockings, accompanying the sailor
who was waiting to conduct me, proceeded to
the sloop's boat and in a few minutes more
was safe on board the Felicity.

With a light breeze we proceeded down the
strait; but the wind being from the south
west we went but little faster than the current,
as we were obliged to tack very frequently
from side to side of the river. Anchoring at
its mouth, we lay there during the night; and
the next morning, the wind freshening a little
from the same direction, we were enabled in
addition to our lower sails to spread our top
sail and top gallant sail, and about the mid
dle of the afternoon anchored in Put-in-bay, a
fine harbor in the western part of Lake Erie,

147

€Jje

formed by the North, Middle, and South Bass,
the Strentian and some smaller islands.

The wind being light and variable and there
being some appearance of a change of weather,
Captain Fleming32 thought it most prudent
to remain here until morning; and taking me
into the boat with two oarsmen and a couple of
hooks and lines, rowed round the bay trailing
the lines from the stern. Passing along the
northern side of Strentian Island, which is
convex, steep, and rocky, we caught several
fine bass (one of which I had the pleasure of
drawing into the boat) on which we made a
delicious meal.

On a high rocky point of this island stood a
very large, tall tree towering above the adja
cent woods, on the top of which was an aerie.
Here first I saw the noble American eagle and
amused myself for some time watching several
of them, as without the least apparent exertion
they gracefully, yet with amazing velocity,
compassed the bay; gradually rising and con
tracting their sphere with each circuit until,
suddenly mounting, they seemed a mere speck
in the blue sky; then as suddenly descending
almost with the rapidity of thought to mid-air,
they began to wheel around, doubling their

32Probably Lieutenant Fleming of the Marine ser
vice. From the Michigan Pioneer and Historical
Collections we learn that in 1798 he had a large family
at Amherstburg (opposite Detroit) and that in 1803
he was relieved of the command of his vessel be
cause of insanity.

148

of <©.

sphere with each circuit as they descended,
some lighting on the trees, others darting on
their prey. One of them lighted on the high
tree near the nest, where his mate could be
seen, probably hatching her eggs, and whose
place he took soon after as she left her nest
for food or recreation.

Early next morning, it being the first day of
April, having a light breeze from the south
we weighed anchor and sailing eastwardly in
a few hours passed between Point Pelee and
Middle Islands; and at four o'clock in the
afternoon (our sloop being a pretty good sailer)
had made about fifty miles, when the wind,
suddenly coming round, began to blow fresh
from the east. We continued onward, how
ever, regularly tacking from southeast to
northeast as near to the wind as the vessel
would progress until after sunset, the wind
still increasing. We were now out of sight of
land; the water all around us seeming to touch
the horizon and the curling waves crested with
foam appearing to mingle with the clouds,
presented to me a novel, sublime, and yet fear
ful spectacle.

I had retired to my berth on the larboard
side of the cabin about ten o'clock and not
withstanding the noise of the waves and the
pitching of the vessel had fallen into a sound
sleep, when the wind having increased to a
tempest, to proceed was impossible. For some
time we lay to under a close-reefed jib and
149

mainsail, when the captain, seeing no prospect
of the storm's abating and fearing that the
rolling of the sloop would unship her mast,
gave orders to put her about. In coming
round on the starboard we were nearly upset; I
was awakened by being thrown from my berth
against the opposite side of the cabin; and the
next moment a heavy sea, striking the stern
and forcing in the cabin windows, poured in
several hogsheads of water, in which, tossed
about from side to side, it was nearly a minute
before I could gain my feet and ascend to the
deck. The dead lights were, however, soon
closed and the vessel cleared of water, and I
was advised by the captain to return to my
berth in the cabin; but I preferred remaining
on deck, thinking that if the sloop should be
wrecked I should have a much better chance
of escape. Although scudding almost under
bare poles (merely carrying sail enough to
steer the vessel by) we were going at the rate
of twelve knots an hour and pitching and rolling
with the heavy swells, sometimes fearing that
we should lose our mast or that the seams of
the vessel (rather old and unseaworthy) open
ing, she would flounder; or, the lake being
shallow, that she would be dashed to pieces
against the bottom. Providence, however,
kindly preserved us, and just after daylight,
passing the fearful breakers on the north side
of Point Pelee, we soon anchored safely in Put
in-bay. Tom, the cook, who was held as an
150

of 4£, jWU

oracle on board the sloop, openly declared that
our being driven back by the storm was in
consequence of our sailing from the bay on
Friday, being, besides, the first day of April,
to which all the crew assented, adding that
we were lucky in getting safely back.

We spent a part of Saturday afternoon in
an excursion through the Middle Bass Island
on which we killed several large rattlesnakes.
I narrowly escaped being bitten by one at least
three feet long over which I stepped as he
crossed the path; and the captain, who had
gone to a small pond a few hundred yards ahead
of us to shoot ducks, returned in a short time
running and out of breath, declaring that a
monster, a snake more than a rod in length,
the moment he fired at some ducks issued from
the long grass by the edge of the water, made
directly toward him, and pursued him for more
than twenty rods. On our return to the sloop
we caught some fine bass, which more than
compensated us for the loss of the captain's
ducks.

The next morning being Sunday, having the
wind fresh from the south and the weather
being favorable, we again weighed anchor and
stood out of the bay, Tom prognosticating that
we should have a prosperous voyage. His
predictions seemed likely to be verified, as we
sailed finely this day; Tom entertained us with
several marvelous stories and extraordinary
adventures of which he had a store, and of

which many would compare with those of
"Sinbad the Sailor "; besides, he had a great
variety of nautical songs, some of which, as
" Sweet Poll of Plymouth " and "All in the
Downs/' he sang with considerable pathos;
and others, of bloody battles and brilliant vic
tories, he sang with great spirit; but none of
my entreaties could prevail with him to sing
"Cease, Rude Boreas/' which he said was to
be sung only on shore over a good can of grog,
in company with wives and sweethearts.

The wind, which had been favorable all day
Sunday, veered round before Monday morning,
blowing very fresh directly ahead; and soon
after daylight, when in sight of Long or Putt-
shawk's Point and not much more than a
hundred miles from Lake Erie, to our great
disappointment a storm even more furious than
the first compelled us to put about and drove
us quite back to Put-in-bay, which we reached
on Monday evening. On Wednesday morning
we again sailed, and on the day following were
again driven back by a furious storm, which
carried away our top gallant mast. On return
ing this time I was extremely sick from the
pitching and rolling of the sloop, and began to
be discouraged, fearing we should never get
across the lake.

We had in the hold of the sloop an ill-looking
man, said to be an American, whom the Brit
ish had taken up at Detroit on suspicion of his
152

of <&. ffi. fencer

being a spy; and on whose person some papers
said to be plans of the fort and town were
found. Pronouncing him guilty, Colonel Eng
land had ordered him to be heavily ironed and
put on board the sloop to be conveyed to
Niagara. Tom now declared this man was a
Jonah, on whose account the vessel had not
been permitted to cross the lake. One who,
though he had escaped justice on shore, the
Almighty would not suffer to reach the land
alive; and so deeply were the crew imbued with
this sentiment that but for a discovery made
on the following day they might have been
tempted to execute their threats, which they
had privately made, to throw him overboard.
On Friday morning, the wind being still from
the east, the captain proposed that we should
go a-fishing and then make a little excursion
through the North Bass Island. Making a
compass round westerly and northerly in our
boat, catching a few fine bass, a moderate
sized sturgeon, and some white fish, we pro
ceeded to the middle of the south side of the
North Bass Island, and crossing it in a north
easterly direction to its north shore were at
tracted to a spot a few hundred yards west of
us by a great number of buzzards, some on the
ground and others sitting on the trees or flying
around in the air. Approaching the place, we
saw a light bateau-fashioned canoe, split and
shattered, lying on the top of the bank just in

153

the edge of the woods; and looking about a
few minutes, found not far from the canoe a
man in a high state of putrefaction, who had
been drowned probably a week before in at
tempting to cross from Point Au Plait to the
bay. His face and neck were entirely destroyed
by the buzzards; but from his dress, a drab-
colored capote, overalls, and moccasins, and
his skin, seen by opening his calico shirt, it
was evident that he was a Canadian French
man.

The cause of our detention and our having
been repeatedly driven back by storms was
immediately explained by Tom, who, declaring
that the Almighty would not suffer us to cross
the lake while this man lay unburied instantly
began preparations for his interment. Taking
the poor Frenchman's paddle which lay near
him, aided by another sailor, sometimes with a
stick and sometimes with his hands, in about
an hour a grave two feet deep was dug in the
soft sandy ground on the top of the bank, into
which the corpse, dragged up by the shoulders,
being placed, Tom drew from his pocket a
prayer book and opening it at the burial service,
handed it to the captain, who read it with great
solemnity. The grave was now filled up, the
paddle with its blade upward was planted at
its head, and over it were thrown brush and
logs for its protection; when, satisfied that we
had done a good work, we returned to our boat

154

of

and on board the sloop, where Tom, having in
about an hour prepared us an excellent dinner
of fish and potatoes, we ate with great gout,
our appetites, from the exercise of the morn
ing, being very keen.

The wind still continued to blow strongly
from the east and the lake outside of the bay
was very rough; but on Wednesday, the thir
teenth of April, the one changing to the south
east and the other becoming calm, we again
set sail, and on Friday evening anchored safely
opposite to Fort Erie. On the following
morning taking leave of the sloop's crew I
went on shore with the captain, who introduced
me to the officer commanding the fort, at the
same time delivering him a letter written by
Colonel England. I was detained here only
a few hours, when, being placed on board a
small barge in charge of a corporal and four
soldiers, I was in a few hours conveyed to
Fort Chippewa, a blockhouse garrisoned by a
lieutenant and thirty men on the north side of
Chippewa Creek, a few rods from its mouth
and about two miles above the falls of Nia
gara.

Here passing the night, on the following
morning, accompanied by a man whom the
lieutenant had provided to conduct me I walked
down to the falls, and after spending about
two hours in viewing that stupendous cataract
proceeded to Queenstown, where finding a

155

wood boat going down to Fort Niagara, I
immediately got on board, and arriving there
an hour after and delivering a letter to the
commanding officer, was by him conducted to
the quarters of Lieutenant Hill, where I was
received with great kindness.

156

CHAPTER XI

FORTY years since, the southwestern part
of the state of New York was almost an
unbroken wilderness; and excepting a log
ferry-house on the top of a high bank opposite
Queenstown (near the present site of Lewis-
ton) there was but one house on the road or
rather footpath between Niagara and Canan-
daigua, a distance of a hundred miles, and
that was a tavern near the western bank of
the Genesee, probably ten miles south of the
spot where Rochester now stands. The best
mode of traveling then was on horseback; but
as there was but little communication between
the western part of New York and Niagara,
opportunities such as would be suitable for my
return to1 my friends seldom occurred. I had,
therefore, to wait patiently until such oppor
tunity should offer, or until Governor Simcoe
should provide some mode of conveyance.
However, I was very comfortably situated in
the family of Mr. Hill, and spent my time
quite pleasantly for about a week that I re
mained at the fort. Lieutenant Hill was ad
jutant of the Fiftieth regiment of infantry, a
part of which with a company of artillery gar
risoned Fort Niagara, and a part was stationed
at York, Upper Canada, on the west side of
the lake, nearly opposite. Frequently by his
invitation I accompanied him when he marched

157

€f)c

the troops not on duty out of the garrison,
which he did on every fair day for the purpose
of exercising them.

It is astonishing to see with what precision
the British regulars go through the manual
exercise, march and perform the different mili
tary evolutions and how quickly the slightest
error or fault is noticed by the officer, who
not infrequently punishes the delinquent by a
stroke of his rattan over the knuckles or on
the shins. The troops here, though almost
perfectly disciplined were, I thought, inferior
to the Twenty-fourth; who, beside, made a
much more showy and as I conceived a more
martial appearance. The uniform of the Twen
ty-fourth was a white vest and pantaloons
with black half gaiters; a long scarlet coat
faced with deep green and laced with silver
at the button-holes, skirts, and wrists. That
of the Fiftieth was drab underclothes and long
scarlet coats faced with light green without
any ornament. The former wore their hair
long, powdered, clubbed at the neck, and
spreading like a fan between their shoulders;
the latter had their hair cued.

With Mr. Hill I was much pleased. He ap
peared to be what is generally termed a clever
man; plain yet urbane in his manners — not
brilliant. His principal recommendation was
his natural kindness and frankness, his so
ciability as a companion, and his punctual ob
servance of his duty as an officer. Being at
158

of

least fifteen years younger than his wife, whom
he treated rather with deference than with
affection, I think it probable that fortune,
rank, or some consideration other than love
influenced his union with her. His wife was at
least forty; tall and lean, with large and homely
features; in her dress very neat and simple;
polished, though rather precise in her manners;
quite intelligent and fluent, and possessing a
very amiable disposition. During my stay with
her she treated me with the kindness of a
mother, carefully repairing my shirts and
clothes: and when I left her, presenting me
with a calico needle and thread case, that I
might learn to mend my own clothes when
occasion should require. This I carefully pre
served for many years, often finding it useful:
and from the habit formed when young have
ever since carried a needle and thread in my
pocket book: and often thus have been led
gratefully to remember that benevolent lady.

The situation of Fort Niagara was a very
commanding one, standing on the high bank
at the mouth of the strait connecting Lakes
Erie and Ontario: and the scenery around it
was at once romantic, grand, and sublime.
Above were the high precipitous banks or
rather mountains, covered to the water's edge
with trees and huge masses of rock, between
which the broad and mighty water contracted
below the deafening cataract into a compara
tively narrow stream, boiling and foaming and

159

Cf)e ijn&ian

whirling along the mighty chasm, rushed for
several miles with resistless impetuosity. A
few miles below on the Canadian side seem
ingly hanging on the face of the mountainous
bank, stood the large white mess house and
quarters of the Queen's Rangers, constituting
the principal buildings of Queenstown, and on
a small plain between the termination of this
hill arid the lake shore was the small but neat
village of Newark, then the residence of Gov
ernor Simcoe. On the west and north and
east the dark deep waters of Ontario presented
a vast expanse bounded only by the horizon,
and inspired the beholder with mingled won
der, delight, and awe.

Here, especially in the "still night," you
might hear the deep heavy roar of the mighty
cataract, as the coming of the desolating tor
nado; and, indeed, it may be heard distinctly
"as the sound of many waters'* on Lake Erie,
more than twenty miles distant. I shall never
forget the sensations with which I first heard
it: sensations growing more and more intense
as I approached nearer and nearer to it: nor
the feeling of apprehension with which while
passing down the rapid current of the river I
bent my body instinctively to the shore as if to
make the boat cling to it. Glancing the eye
from the first small break of the water (close
to the British shore, just above the head of the
long narrow island extending almost from the
mouth of Chippewa to the falls, and at the

160

of <®. JR.

foot of which formerly there was a small mill)
in the direction of Goat Island to the middle
of the river, you are struck with dread as you
mark the second break, as it is called, where a
part of the mighty river, sweeping down a
steep ledge of rock, rises and rolls in fearful
swells that threaten instant destruction. But
no language can describe the feelings of the
beholder when standing just in front of the
awful precipice he first sees the vast volume
of water rushing over, far beyond the angular
summit rock (its upper bed) extending from
its western bank to Goat Island, and plunging
down, down into the deep abyss; then meas
ures with his eye the giddy height of the foot
of that island, rising perpendicularly from the
depths below and presenting a face of solid
rock; then views the beautiful unbroken
sheet of water that falls between it and the
eastern bank, facing the west and in front of
which in clear, warm sunshine may be always
seen a brilliant rainbow, with its ample arch
spanning its width; then the troubled water,
rising and bounding from its fearful plunge,
back to the foot of the tremendous cataract,
there forced again into the dread abyss, again
emerging, rolls tumultuously down, a mighty
torrent. But I had not intended to have attempt
ed even this faint outline of this most grand,
sublime, and wonderful of nature's works, to
describe which would require the pen of a Mil
ton; and in beholding which the mind is led
161

involuntarily to exclaim, "Great and marvelous
are Thy works, Lord God Almighty I"

I had been about a week at Fort Niagara
when one afternoon Mr. Hill informed me that,
an opportunity offering for me to return to my
friends, Governor Simcoe had directed that I
should immediately be sent over to Newark.
Tying up my small wardrobe in my handker
chief in a few minutes I was ready to comply
with this brief notice; then taking a hasty leave
of Mr. and Mrs. Hill I was soon conveyed across
the Niagara and conducted to the house of
Governor Simcoe. The governor received me
with great courtesy, and introducing me to
Thomas Morris Esq. of Canandaigua,33 who had
arrived at Newark only the day before, re
marked that he had acquainted that gentleman
with the request that had been made to him by
the British minister (at the instance of my
friends) to ascertain where I was and to release
me from captivity, and of the fortunate result

33This was Thomas Morris, son of Robert Morris
of Philadelphia, the financier of the American Revo
lution. In 1/90 Robert Morris bought a tract of
1,267,000 acres of land in western New York from
Phelps and Gorham, partners, who had obtained
title from the state of Massachusetts. Morris shortly
sold his land to a syndicate of English capitalists,
but his son, Thomas, nevertheless came to Can
andaigua to reside in 1792, making the place his
permanent home. At the time of his hospitality to
Spencer he was both a new resident of Canandaigua
and a young man, being about twenty-three years
of age.

162

of <©. $&> fencer

of his efforts; and concluded by saying that Mr.
Morris, on his request, had kindly consented
to take me as far as Canandaigua. Mr. Morris
then made some inquiries about my family and
relatives: said he was well acquainted with my
uncle, Colonel Ogden of Elizabethtown, New
Jersey; that he would with pleasure convey me
to Canandaigua, whence he had no doubt I
would have an opportunity of returning to my
friends.

In answering the inquiries made of me by
Governor Simcoe I was led to speak of the
conduct of Colonel Elliott; particularly of his
leaving me in charge of the Indians at the
mouth of the Maumee, and of the injury I had
suffered and of the danger I had in consequence
incurred. On hearing this he appeared to be
quite indignant; he spoke of his instructions to
Elliott to convey me to Detroit; and I well
recollect his remark to Mr. Morris that such
conduct in a British officer would have subjected
him to trial before a court martial; but that he
was obliged to overlook many improprieties
in the agents, who had such influence with the
Indians and were so necessary to His Majesty
in his intercourse with them.

Mr. Morris now remarking that he proposed
to set off from the ferry-house early next
morning and that he would wait for me until
next evening at Queenstown, arose and took
his leave. Of Governor Simcoe's person, I
have not a distinct recollection. I remember,

163

€l)e

however, that his figure was commanding, his
features were manly, his countenance was open,
his manners, though dignified, were affable;
and in his conversation he had all the frankness
of the soldier. I had the honor of taking tea
that afternoon with his lady, a very handsome
and intelligent woman, but unfortunately af
flicted with so great an impediment in her
speech that to me it was painful to converse
with her.

After tea a servant appeared at the gate with
two fine bay horses, on one of which after
taking leave of Governor Simcoe and his lady
I mounted, when the servant receiving his
orders, "Spin him along/' we set off at a
rapid canter, and traveling at half speed up
hill and down, in less than an hour arrived at
Queenstown. Crossing the Niagara about dusk
and ascending the high bank, Mr. Morris and
I entered the ferry-house where we found Mr.
Nathaniel Gorham (if I mistake not, one of the
proprietors of Canandaigua) and a colored ser
vant who had traveled with him to the frontier.
Here we spent the night, and on the next
morning after a very early breakfast set out on
horseback (a separate horse being provided
for me) for Canandaigua. Traveling rapidly
and stopping only an hour at noon to bait our
horses and take a luncheon of biscuit and
cheese, we rested at night at an Indian village;
and on the next day, dining at about twelve
o'clock at a tavern near the west bank of the
164

of

Genesee, arrived at Canandaigua a little after
dark; thus performing a journey of nearly a
hundred miles through the wilderness, along a
footpath, in two days.

Here I was placed in the family of Mr.
Sanford, a tavernkeeper, with whom Mr. Morris
(being then single, and not having quite fin
ished his large and elegant house at the west
end of the town) boarded. Canandaigua was,
in 1793, a neat village, containing, I think,
about forty houses scattered along the principal
street leading westwardly from the long narrow
lake after which it was named for more than a
mile. At the head of this street facing the
lake stood the house of Mr. Sanford, a large
two-story wooden building, painted white and
making a very respectable appearance. Near
this house on the north was the village school-
house, where Mr. Upham taught about forty
girls and boys; and below it was the residence
of Mr. Chapin, agent for the Senecas, the
eldest of whose sons traded with the Indians,
exchanging his goods for furs and skins; while
a younger one acted as an interpreter.

At Canandaigua I remained until about the
middle of June, waiting for an opportunity to
go to New York: at which time Mr. Chapin,
having collected a large quantity of furs and
bear and deer skins sufficient to load a pretty
large bateau, being ready to set out for New
York to replenish his stock of goods, at the
request of Mr. Morris consented to take me
165

with him. I had spent my time very pleasantly
at Canandaigua, where I had employed a part
of my time at school with Mr. Upham, and
occasionally had amused myself in fishing at
the outlet of the lake. I had been treated,
too, by Mr. and Mrs. Sanford with parental
kindness; but never from a stranger did I re
ceive such benevolent and generous treatment
as I received from Mr. Morris. He had
incurred the expense of purchasing a horse to
convey me from Niagara; he had defrayed the
charge of my boarding and schooling at Canan
daigua; he had furnished me with some summer
clothing, and now that I was ready to set out
for New York supplied me with money to bear
my expenses; and for all this he would never
afterwards receive the least remuneration.

I was deeply affected when I took my leave
of him, and to this day when I think of him it
is with feelings of the liveliest gratitude. Our
bateau lay in the outlet about three miles
north of the north end of Canandaigua Lake,
to which point there was water sufficient for
bateau navigation. From this point, having
loaded the bateau with peltries conveyed in
wagons from the village, we proceeded slowly
down the narrow winding outlet; sometimes
being obliged to stop and cut away trees that
had fallen across it, and sometimes to get out
and drag our flat-bottomed boat over the rip
ples. In this way we proceeded for nearly
four days; passing, however, the several outlets

166

of <&. ffii.

of the Seneca and Cayuga, the Owasca, and
other lakes, the stream gradually became larger
and its obstructions fewer. On the fourth day
we arrived at the mouth of the Oneida outlet,
here called Three River Point, distant from
Canandaigua by land about sixty miles, but at
least one hundred by water. Ascending the
outlet, we crossed the Oneida lake, about thirty
miles in length, to the mouth of Wood Creek,
up which small crooked stream we with much
difficulty forced our bateau to within a mile of
the Mohawk, whence transporting it across the
ground where Rome now stands, but where
then, on the Mohawk, stood but a solitary
house, we proceeded down that river to Schenec-
tady. From this place (Mr. Chapin conveying
his peltries in wagons) we rode to Albany;
whence, having stayed a day or two, we em
barked on board a Dutch sloop for New York,
where we arrived on the second day of
July.

Here I took leave of Mr. Chapin, and on
the next day, taking a passage in an open ferry
boat (the only ferry boats in use at that time)
across the bay, in which by a sudden gust of
wind we were nearly upset, I arrived at Eliza-
bethtown, New Jersey, where my sister and
relations were delighted to see me. But the
happiness I experienced in returning to the
home of my childhood, after an absence of
nearly three years in which I had endured so
many privations and hardships and encountered
167

€f)e ^nDian Captifcitp

so many dangers, must have been far superior
to theirs; and when on the evening of that day
I retired to rest, gratefully reflecting on the
past goodness and mercy of God to me, de
voutly, on my knees, I thanked Him for the
exercise of His gracious providence toward
me, preserving, sustaining, and protecting me
and restoring me in safety to my friends.

The next day being the fourth of July, there
was a very splendid celebration at Elizabeth-
town, which I enjoyed very much. At this
time I had the pleasure of seeing my distant
relative, the late Governor Bloomfield,34 who
was highly gratified with the narrative of my
captivity and my account of Indian manners
and customs, and took great pleasure in hear
ing my Indian songs, and in seeing me dance
after the Indian mode. On the next day he
caused to be published in Kollock* s New Jersey
Journal in substance the following notice:
" Arrived at this place on the third instant, by
the way of Detroit, Niagara, and New York,
the only son of Colonel Oliver Spencer, late
a captive among the Indians, with whom he
remained about eight months, acquiring a con
siderable knowledge of their language, customs

34 Joseph Bloomfield, a native of New Jersey, served
in the Revolution and in the War of 1812, attaining
the rank of brigadier-general. He was at different
times attorney-general of New Jersey, governor of
the State, and representative in Congress.
168

of

and manners/' I think, too, that there was
some allusion to my looks and manners, as
slightly resembling the Indians.

This notice brought people from far and
near to see me; some, no doubt, merely from
the regard they bore to an old and esteemed
friend or acquaintance, whose son I was; but
the greater part from mere curiosity, as they
would flock to an exhibition of wild beasts,
expecting, no doubt, to see something at least
half savage. At first I took pleasure in giving
an account of my captivity ; in answering the
numerous inquiries that were made of me, and
in singing and dancing Indian and uttering the
various Indian yells; performing so naturally,
as they supposed, and exhibiting as they fan
cied such a wildness in my looks and manners,
that some frequently remarked in an under
tone, "How much he looks like an Indian!"
But being obliged to repeat the same story and
answer the same questions frequently twenty
times a day to different companies and indi
viduals, I became so heartily tired of it that at
last I gave only brief answers, often uttering a
simple "Yes" or "No" to the inquiries that
were made of me. Indeed, from the circum
stance of then repeating so often the story of
my captivity, and for weeks answering so many
inquiries, I became averse to saying anything
about it, and acquired a habit of replying so la
conically to questions asked me that in after

169

€f)e

life I have felt mortified, when by my brief
answers to questions on this subject I have
seemed to check further inquiry and to give
room to suspect me of want of politeness or
even of civility.

My long narrative which must have exer
cised the patience of the reader, if indeed, he
has taken time to read the whole of the pre
ceding chapters of it, may soon be brought to
a close. At Elizabethtown I remained with
my sister and brother-in-law, Mr. Halstead,
for a little more than a year, a regular portion
of all of which time was occupied by me at
school; and on the fourteenth of September,
1794, being then fourteen years old, I set out
on horseback, in company with a Mr. Crane
and the late General Schenck35 (then on his
first visit to the West) on my return home.
We performed the journey to Pittsburgh in ten
days, and there putting our horses on board a
flatboat descended the Ohio and arrived at
Columbia about the middle of October. The

35General William C. Schenck migrated to Ohio
from New Jersey in 1793, settling first at Marietta.
He soon removed to Cincinnati and shortly there
after surveyed and founded the town of Franklin,
Warren County. He served as an officer under
General Harrison in the northwestern campaigns,
and died in 1821. Two of his sons became promi
nent : Robert C. Schenck as Civil War general, mem
ber of Congress, and United States minister to
Great Britain; and James F. Schenck as admiral in
the United States navy.

170

of 4£*

joy of my parents on seeing me is more easily
imagined than described; with tears and em
braces they welcomed my return. The day
was spent in affectionate inquiries about the
past; and devoutly and gratefully that evening,
around our family altar, did we join in thanks
giving and praise with my pious father to the
Father of Mercies for all His past unmerited
goodness; particularly for my preservation,
and safe restoration to my home.

Nearly forty years have since passed away;
our rivers teem with commerce; their banks
are covered with farms, with houses, villages,
towns, and cities; the wilderness has been con
verted into fruitful fields; temples to God are
erected where once stood the Indian wigwam,
and the praises of the Most High resound where
formerly the screams of the panther or the yell
of the savage only were heard. O, "what
hath God wrought ! ' ' But where are the friends
and companions of our youth? Our parents,
where are they? Mine have long since "slept
with their fathers. ' ' Wawpawmawquaw, who
only a short time since had for several years
previously paid me an annual visit, has gone
to the land of his fathers, and almost all of
those of whom in my narrative I have spoken
are no longer "dwellers upon earth. " We,
also, will soon end our earthly pilgrimage and
enter into "that bourne whence no traveler re
turns/' May we through Divine grace "finish
171

well our journey/' that we may dwell at last
where ' 'ever-during spring abides, and never-
withering flowers"; in that healthful clime
where "sickness, sorrow, pain, and death are
felt and feared no more"; where "there is full
ness of joy," and where there are "pleasures
forevermore."

172

Index

ABERDEEN (Scotland), 82.

Adair, Maj. John, attacked, 115.

Agriculture, of pioneers, 38-39; of Indians, 85-86.

Albany (N. Y.), Spencer at, 167.

Allegheny Mountains, westward region, ix, 3; as a

barrier, 7.

Allison, Dr. Richard, bravery, 26.
American Bible Society, xx.
American Revolution, conclusion, viii-ix; participants,

4, 28-29, 115, 168.

Amherstburg (Ont.), captured, 29; resident, 82.
Andre, Maj. John, 142.
Andre, Lieut. W. L., at Detroit, 140-47; characterized,

142.

Andre, Mrs. W. L., befriends Spencer, 141-4?-
Andrews, Lieut. Charles S., at Detroit, 142.
Ash trees, on the Ohio, n; on the Maumee, 84, 125.
Askin, John, at Detroit, 142, 146; Sketch, 142-43.
Askin, John, Jr., at capture of Mackinac, 143.
Auglaize River, fort on, xix; Indian village near, 51,

73-74, 79» 82, 85, 89; Spencer on, 72-75; mouth of,

84-85, 95-96, 125; traders on, 95-96, 131; crossed,

130.

BAILEY, — , captured by Indians, 1 7.
Ball, Henry, Indian captive, 96.
Baptiste, French-Canadian, 133, 135.
Baptists in Ohio, 33-34.
Bass, in Lake Erie, 151, 153.
Beans, as Indian food, 107.
Beaver, Indian song of, 121.
Beech trees, on the Ohio, n.
Belief ontaine (Ohio), no.
Big Bottom (Ohio), massacre at, xviii.

175

Big Miami River, settlers on, xii-xiv; crossing place,
21, 71; branches, 67.

Black Hawk, narrative, vii-viii.

Black Loon (Caw-ta-maw-waw-waw-quah), makes
captive, 98-99; in racing match, 104; attempts to
murder Spencer, no; in war party, 115-17.

Blanche, Joseph, messenger for Spencer, 126-30, 132-

33, 135-

Bloomfield, Gov. Joseph, of New Jersey, 168.

Blue Jacket, Shawnee chief, visit to, 89-90, 95; town
of, 96, 100, no, 116; sketch, 89-90.

Boundaries, of the United States, ix-x.

Bowman, Ensign, house fired on, 19.

Brandywine, battle of, 4.

Brant, Mohawk chief, wounds Girty, 93.

Bread, Indian method of making, 107.

Brice, G. W., publisher, xxii-xxiii.

British, posts, in the Northwest, ix-x, xx; urge Indians
to war, ix, 145; irritation with, x; war with, 4; In
dian allies, 79; minister to United States, 114, 162;
agent from Detroit, 126.

Buck Creek (Ohio), Spencer passes, 57-58, 66.

Buckeyes, on the Ohio, n.

Buckhongelas, Delaware chief, 90; sketch, 90-91.

Buffalo Historical Society, Publications, 146.

Burr, Aaron, western conspiracy, 114.

Burton Library, at Detroit, 143.

Butler, Gen. Richard, treaty commissioner, 91; killed
at St. Glair's defeat, 23, 25.

Butterfield, Consul W., History of the Girtys, 28.

CANADA, fur trade in, x-xi; Loyalists, 96.

Canandaigua (N. Y.), path to, 157, 164-65; resident,
162-63; proprietor, 164; Spencer at, 165-67.

Canandaigua Lake, 166.

Caw-ta-maw-waw-quaw. See Black Loon.

Cayuga Indians, in Iroquois confederacy, 79.

Cayuga Lake, outlet, 167.

Chambersburg (Pa.), route via, 7.

Chapin, Israel, Indian agent, 165-67.

Charles II, English King, 3.
I76

Cherokee River. See Tennessee River.

Chicago (111.), massacre at, 51; first settler, 95; His
torical Society, 15.

"Chippewa," lake vessel, 146.

Chippewa Creek, at Niagara, 155, 160.

Christian Advocate and Journal, xxiii.

Cincinnati (Ohio), early days at, xiv-xvi, 31, 170; In
dian raids near, 17; defense of, 29; fort at, xvii; as
a rendezvous, 20-21; news of Indian attacks at, 15,
22; road to, 13; ball at, 33, 39; Directory, xx, 49.
See also Fort Washington.

Clark, Gen. George Rogers, and Buckhongehelas, 91.

Coleman, Mrs., Columbia pioneer, 42-43; attacked by
Indians, 45; floats down stream, 45, 49.

Colerain (Ohio). See Dunlap's Station.

Columbia (Ohio), founded, xiv-xv, 13; new set tiers at,
xvi, 5, 9, 12; attack on, xvii; relief party from, 15,
50; preacher at, 34; mill, 36; agriculture, 38; scalp
brought to, 20; ladies go to Cincinnati from, 33,
39; captive taken near, 42-48, 98; Spencer returns
to, 170.

Confederation government, a failure, xi-xii.

Congress, appointments, 4.

Connecticut, native, xv.

Cooh-coo-cheeh, Iroquois squaw, 75-80, 118; family,
82, 102, 114; dwelling, 83-84, 133; dress, 87; medi
cine rites, 116-17; customs, 121-23; Pavs a visit,
89, 95; entertains, 102-7, 110-13; makes maple
sugar, 125-26; kindness to captives, 86, 101-2, 131;
parts from Spencer, 129.

Corn, raised by Indians, 85; feast of, 102-8.

Cornwallis, Charles, Lord, surrender, 115.

Cottonwood, on the Ohio, n, 40.

Crane, — , traveler, 170.

Crawfish Creek, tributary of Ohio, 13, 39.

Cumberland Road, route to the Ohio, 6.

DARKE, Col. John, in St. Clair's defeat, 26.

Dayton, Jonathan, letter from, xvi.

Deer Creek (Ohio) , Indian raid near, 17; mouth of,
31,40,42-43.

177

Defiance (Ohio), site, 97.

Delaware Indians, chief, 90.

Denman, Mathias, Ohio Settler, xiv.

Detroit, in the Revolution, 29; Loyalists at, 96; agent

from, 126, 128-30, 135; merchants, 131; Spencer

at, 137-47; described, 143-46.
Drake, Benjamin, Tales and Sketches from the Queen

City, 91.

Draper Manuscripts, cited, xxi, 20, 49.
Dunlap's Station, Indian attack on, 14-16.
"Dunmore," lake vessel, 146.
EAGLE, hovering over Lake Erie, 148-49.
Easton (Pa.), route via, 5.
Eaton (Ohio), site, 21.
Eel River, Indian town on, 90.
Elizabethtown (N. J.), xv, 163; Spencer arrives at,

167-68, 170.
Elliott, Matthew, Loyalist, 28, 96; sent for Spencer,

i30-33» i3S» 137, 163; characterized, 134; con
demned, 163.

Elms, on the Maumee, 84, 125.
England, Col. Richard, commandant at Detroit, 137,

145-47, 153, 155; sketch, 139.
England, Mrs. Richard, brother, 141.
English. See British.
Erskine. See Askin.

FALLEN Timbers, battle of, xix, 29, 90, 145.
"Felicity," lake vessel, 146-52.
Fiftieth British Infantry, at Niagara, 157-58; uniform,

158.

Filson, John, names town, xiv.
Five Nations Indians, form Confederacy, 79.
Flatboats, on Western rivers, xvi; described, 9.
Fleming, Lieut. — , of marine service, 148.
Forbes, Gen. John, campaign, 6.
Forbes7 Road. See Old Glade Road.
Ford, Capt. Mahlon, in St. Clair's defeat, 25-26.
Fort Chippewa, at Niagara, 155.
Fort Dearborn, massacre at, 52.
Fort Defiance, built, xix, 97; site, 95.
178

Fort Duquesne, captured, 6.

Fort Erie, British post, 147, 155.

Fort Hamilton, built, 21; garrison at, 29.

Fort Harmar, letter from, 81.

Fort Jefferson (Ohio), built, 21; garrison on, 29.

Fort Mclntosh, treaty at, 91.

Fort Miamis, British post, 145.

Fort Niagara. See Niagara.

Fort Recovery, built, xix.

Fort St. Clair, garrison, 29; attack near, 115, 117.

Fort Washington, at Cincinnati, xvii, 29, 41, 49> J345
rendezvous at, xviii-xix; description of, 32-33; cele
brations at, 33, 39, 41; garrison, 92; commandant,
114.

Fort Wayne (Ind.), site, xviii, 95; built, xix; resident,

52.

Fourth of July, celebration of, 39, 41-42, 168.

Franklin (Ohio), founded, 170.

French and Indian War, 143.

French-Canadians, from Detroit, 128-29, 133, 135;
drowned, 154.

Frenchtown, inhabitants, 135.

Frontiersmen, attitude towards Indians, vii-viii.

Fur trade, in the Northwest, x-xi, 143; in New York,
165-66.

GALLIPOLIS (Ohio), passed, n.

Gano, Gen. John, in Northwestern wars, 34.

Gano, Rev. Stephen, at Columbia, 34.

Genesee River, 157; tavern on, 165.

Germantown (Pa.) , battle of, 4.

Girty, George, Indian leader, 28.

Girty, James, Indian leader, 28; home of, 96, 132;
threatens Spencer, 132-33; sketch, 96.

Girty, Simon, Indian leader, 28; reputed son, 92;
Spencer meets, 91-93; characterized, 92; brother, 96.

Girty's Town, site, 96.

Goat Island, in Niagara River, 161.

Gore, Sir Francis, governor of Upper Canada.

Gorham, Nathaniel, in western New York, 164; pur
chases lands, 162.

179

Grant, Commodore Alexander, at Detroit, 142, 146;
sketch, 143.

Great Britain. See British.

Great Lakes, as a boundary, ix-x; shipping on, 143,
146.

Great Miami River. See Big Miami River.

Greenville, treaty at, xx.

Grosse Pointe, resident, 143.

HALSTEAD, — , at Elizabethtown, 170.

Hamilton (Ohio), site, 21.

Hardin, Col. John, defeat, 80, 90.

Harmar, Gen. Josiah, expeditions, xviii-xix, 20, 80, 96.

Harrisburg (Pa.), route via, 5.

Harrison, William Henry, home, xiv; speech, 34;
officer, 170.

Hawk, as Indian food, 71-72.

Hay, Henry, journal, 82, 95.

Heart, Capt. Jonathan, letter cited, 81.

Hickory, on the Ohio, n; on the Maumee, 84.

Hill, Lieut. — , at Niagara, 156-59, 162.

Hill, Mrs. Lieut., kindness to Spencer, 159, 162.

Honey-trees, on the Ohio, n.

Hulbert, Archer B., The Old Glade Road, 6; Water
ways of Westward Expansion. The Ohio River
and Its Tributaries, 9, 23.

Hunt, Abner, Indian captive, 15; burned to death, 16.

Hunter, Peter, governor of Upper Canada, 143.

Hurricane, in Ohio, 55-56.

INDIAN agents, at Fort Wayne, 51-52; New York, 165.

Indians, dwellings, 83; household furniture, 86-87,
107; cooking methods, 122; dress, 87-89, 91; agri
culture, 85-86; sugar making, 125; fishing, 85;
feasts, 106-7; feast for dead, 80-8 1, 127; burial
customs, 81-82; belief in future life, 128; religious
observances, 54, 116; priestess, 78, 83, 116; treat
ment of women, 75; respect for property, 68-69;
orations, 103-4; amusements, 102-7, 110-13; fond
ness for liquor, 109-11; traditions among, 127-28;
relation to whites, vii, ix-x, 127; war parties, xii-
xiii, xvii-xx; treatment of prisoners, 42-48, 97-102.
1 80

Iroquois Indians, join Shawnee, 70, 77, 79; confedera
tion formed, 78-79.

Ironside, George, Indian trader, 82; humanity, 86, 97,
114, 129, 132-33; residence, 95, 113; wife, 102, 114,
132; knowledge of Indian customs, 97, 103; dis
poses of Spencer, 126, 131; sketch, 82.

JACOB'S Creek, boat built on, 9.

KANAWHA (W. Va.), passed, n.

Ked-zaw-saw (Simo-ne), Indian halfbreed, 82.

Keel boats, on the Ohio, 9.

Kentucky, part of Virginia, ix; Indian raids in, xiii,
117; militia from, xviii; expedition from, 17, 30;
shore of, 40; type of settler, 97, 98.

King's College, at Aberdeen, 82.

Kingsbury, Lieut. Jacob, commands garrison, 15.

Kinzie, John, silversmith, 95; sketch, 95.

Kollock's New Jersey Journal, 168.

LAKE CHAMPLAIN, 78.

Lake Erie, 160; battle of, 29; affluents, 135, 143; navi
gation, 139, 147-55; strait from, 159.

Lake George, 78.

Lake Huron, 143.

Lake Michigan, 146.

Lake Ontario, 78, 159-60.

Lake St. Clair, 143.

Laurel Hill, route via, 7.

Lee, Arthur, treaty commissioner, 91.

Lewiston (N. Y.), 157.

Library of Congress, 15.

Licking River, site opposite mouth of, xiv.

Light, Jacob, Columbia pioneer, 42-43; wounded, 45;
reports Spencer's captivity, 49.

Limestone (Ky.), a river port, xii, n.

Linden, on the Ohio, n.

Liquor, Indian fondness for, 109-11.

Little Miami River, settlers on, xii-xiii, 21; town on,
xiv, 5, 13, 134; road crosses, 17; mill on, 36.

Little Turtle, Miami chief, 90; daughter, 51; leads
war party, 115-17; sketch, 90.

Long Knives. See Semonthe.
181

Long Point, on Lake Erie, 152.

Losantiville, first name for Cincinnati, xiv.

McKEE, Alexander, American Loyalist, 28, 96; sketch,
29.

McKenzie, John. See Kinzie.

Mackinac, a British post, 143; garrison, 145.

Mad River (Ohio), branches of, 66; crossing of, 67.

Manary's Blockhouse, skirmish near, no.

Maple sugar. See sugar.

Maples, on the Ohio, n.

Marietta (Ohio), founded, xii; Indian raid near, xviii;
a river town, n; settlers, 35, 170.

Massachusetts, settlement, xi; land purchase, 162.

Maumee River, forks of, xix, 75, 84, 89, 95-97, 126,
133; rapids, 96-97, 135; mouth, 163; Indian towns
on, 21, 89, 93, 100, 135; trading house, 29; traders,
82, 113; war parties, 81, 116; battle, 80; fort, 145;
crossed, 125; voyage on, 133-35; description of, 84-

85-

Maysville (Ky.) . See Limestone.
Meadows, Polly, Indian captive, 96.
Meecheway, Spencer's Indian name, 123.
Mendham (N. J.) , Spencer's home, 6.
Metacooseaqua, Indian name for British, 127.
Methodist Book Concern, xxiii.
Methodist Episcopal minister, xxi.
Miami Exporting Company, president, xxi.
Miami country. See Big Miami River and Little

Miami River.
Miami Indians, villages, 21, no; chieftain, 90; war

party, 115-17; respect for Wells, 51-52.
Miamitown, Indian village, xyiii-xix; trader at, 95.
Michilimackinac. See Mackinac.
Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections, 148.
Middle Bass Island, 148-50.
Milford (Ohio), route to, 13.
Mill Creek (Ohio), hunting on, 98.
Mills, in the Miami settlement, 36.
Mississippi River, as a boundary, ix, 79. ^
Mississippi Valley, waters of, 7; changes in, 10.
182

Mohawk Indians, among the Shawnee, 70, 79; war

chief of, 78; defeat of, 79; alliance with British, 79;

death of, 80; name, 82.
Mohawk River, route via, 167.
Monmouth, battle of, 4.
Monongahela River, boat building on, 9.
Montreal (Can.), 131.
Moore, William, Indian captive, 97-102, 104-6, 113;

fishing, no.

Morris, Robert, son, 162.
Morris, Thomas, of Canandaigua, 162-66; kindness to

Spencer, 166.

Muskingum River, settlement at, xii.
NEW ENGLAND, founds Ohio Company, xii; settlers

from, xv; settlers in, 3-4.

New Jersey, settlers from, xii-xiii, xv-xvi, xx; Revolu
tion in, 4; governor, 168.
New York City, Spencer in, 165-67.
New York State, 115, 126; western part, 157, 162.
Newark (Ont.), Simcoe's residence, 160, 162.
Newell, — , killed by Indians, 17.
Niagara, British post, 115, 139, 153, 159-60; Spencer

reaches, i55-56> l66; garrison, 157-58.
Niagara Falls, Spencer sees, 155; description of, 159-

62.

Niagara River, crossed, 162, 164.
North Bass Island, 148, 153.
North Bend (Ohio), founded, xiv; Indian attacks on,

xvii.

North Carolina, Indians from, 79.
Northwest Territory, Indian wars in, vii, ix, 89;

British posts, ix-x, xx; ordinance for, xii; governor,

20.

OAKS, on the Ohio, n; on the Maumee, 84, 95.
O'Brian, Ensign — , at Detroit, 141.
Ogden, Col. — , Spencer's uncle, 163.
Ogden, Robert, of New Jersey, xv.
Ogden family, related to Spencer, 141-42.
Ohio, colonized, xii-xvi, 170; Indian cession of, xx.
Ohio Company, formed, xii.

183

Ohio River, as a boundary, ix-xi, 104; trading voyage

on,xii; emigrants on, xiii, xvi, xviii, 9-12, 126, 170;

towns on, xiv, n; description of, n; Indians

attack boats on, 17, no.
Old Glade Road, 6-9.

Old Northwest. See Northwest Territory.
Oldham, Col. William, in St. Glair's defeat, 22.
Oneida Indians, in Iroquois confederacy, 79.
Oneida Lake, outlet, 167.

Onondaga Indians, in Iroquois confederacy, 79.
Ordinance of 1787, xii.
"Ottawa," lake vessel, 146.
Ouiatanon, Indian village, 17.
Owasca Lake, outlet, 167.
PARROQUETS, in Ohio Valley, 36.
Pennsylvania, frontiers, ix; militia from, xviii.
Pennsylvania Road, emigrants on, xvi, 6-9.
Pero. See Pirault.
Perry, Oliver W., victory, 29.
Phelps, Oliver, purchaser of New York lands, 162.
Philadelphia (Pa.), road terminus, 7; capital, 114;

resident, 162.

Pirault (Pero), a baker, 95.

Pittsburgh (Pa.), route to, 7, 170; departure from, n.
Point Au Plait, 154.
Point Pelee, in Lake Erie, 149-50.
Poplars, on the Ohio, n; on the Maumee, 125, 128.
Post Vincennes. See Vincennes.
Pumpkins, as Indian food, 107.
Put-in-bay, on Lake Erie, 147, 150, 152.
Puttshawk's Point. See Long Point.
QUAIFE, M. M., Chicago and the Old Northwest, 52,

96; "Henry Hay's Journal," 82, 95.
Quasay. See So-tone-goo.
Queen's Rangers, at Queenstown, 160.
Queenstown (Conn.), 155, 157, 160, 163-64.
RABBITS, as Indian food, 114.
Raccoon, as Indian food, 47, 52.
Rattlesnakes, on Lake Erie islands, 151.
Redstone (Pa.) , as a port, xii.
184

Robertson, William, Detroit merchant, 131.

Rochester (N. Y.), site, 157.

Rocky Mountains, as a boundary, 103.

Rome (N. Y.), portage at, 167.

ST. CLAIR, Gov. Arthur, names town, xiv; Indian
campaign, xviii-xix, 20-30; defeat, 23-29, 51, 89-
90, 93, 96, 104.

St. Lawrence River, Indians on, 78-79.

St. Mary's on the Maumee, 96.

San Domingo, governor, 115.

Sanford, — , tavern keeper at Canandaigua, 165-66.

Sassafras, on the Ohio, n.

Sauk Indians, hostilities, vii.

Schenck, James F., naval officer, 170.

Schenck, Robert C., in Civil War, 170.

Schenck, Gen. William C., 170.

Schenectady (N. Y.), Spencer at, 167.

Scott, Gen. Charles, expeditions, 17, 30.

Semonthe, Indian name for Americans, 117, 127.

Seneca Indians, in Iroquois confederacy, 79; agent,
165.

Seneca Lake, outlet, 167.

Sharon (Ohio), site, 46.

Sharp, George, Detroit trader, 130, 136; character
ized, 134; sketch, 131.

Shawnee Indians, at St. Clair's defeat, 28, 89; capture
Spencer, 70; Iroquois among, 70, 77, 79; villages,
52, 79-80-89; capital, 100; chieftains, 89, 91; war
party, 115-17; language, 120, 136.

Shaylor, Capt. Joseph, in St. Clair's defeat, 26.

Sidney (Ohio), site, 71.

Simcoe, John Graves, governor of Upper Canada,
rescues Spencer, 131, 139, 157; Spencer visits, 162-
63; characterized, 163-64; sketch, 114-15.

Simcoe, Lady, 164.

Simo-ne. See Ked-zaw-saw.

Six Nations Indians, confederacy, 79.

Slough, Capt. Jacob, in St. Clair's defeat, 23.

Snake, Shawnee chief, 91; described, 92-93; village,
116.

185

Sorel River, Indians on, 77.

So-tone-goo (Quasay) , Indian girl, 82, 114, 120; bids
Spencer farewell, 129.

South Bass Island, 148.

Spears, Capt. — , at Detroit, 145.

Spencer, Col. Oliver, Columbia settler, xv-xvi, 168; in
the Revolution, 4; Columbia home, 14; attack on,
18.

Spencer, Jr., Oliver, as a type of Indian captives, viii;
capture, 42-48; attempts to escape, 58-61; recap
tured, 64; ill-treatment, 65-95; restored to health,
97; life among Indians, 98-122; purchased by Brit
ish, 126; voyage to Detroit, 133-37; at Detroit,
137-47; sent to Niagara, 147-55; returns home, 157-
70; sketch, xx-xxi.

Spice wood, on the Ohio, n.

Sportmen's Hall, on the Ohio, 40.

Springfield (N. J.), battle at, 4.

Squash, as Indian food, 107.

Squirrels, as Indian food, 67, 106.

Steamboats, on western rivers, 10.

Stites, Benjamin, Ohio settler, xii-xiv, xvi, 13.

Strentian Island, described, 148.

Sugar, maple, making of, 125-26.

Sycamores, in Ohio, n, 67.

Symmes, John Cleves, Miami settler, xiii-xiv; letter
to, xvi.

TENNESSEE (Cherokee) River, Indians on, 79.

Three River Point, 167.

Tobacco, as Indian sacrifice, 54.

Tom, vessel cook, 151-54.

Treaty of Paris (1783), ix-x.

Treaty of Fort Mclntosh (1885), 91.

Treaty of 1795 (Jay's), xx.

Treaty of Greenville, 1795, xx, 51; signers, 90.

Turkey Bottom, near Columbia, 38.

Turpin, — , miller, 36.

Tuscarawa Indians, migrate north, 79.

Twenty-fourth British Infantry, 142, 145; uniform,
158.

186

UPHAM, — , New York schoolmaster, 165-66.
Upper Canada, governors, 114-15, 143.
VINCENNES (Ind.), officer at, 51, 114.
Virginia, western possessions, ix; settlement, x; mili
tia from, xviii.
WABASH River, raid on, 17; St. Glair's defeat on, 22,

3°-

Wade, D. E., Cincinnati pioneer, 31.

Walker, Captain, Indian warrior, 104-6, 113.

Wallace, Col. John S., aids in relief of garrison, 15.

Walnut trees, on the Ohio, n.

War of 1812, xx, 51, no, 143, 168.

Warren County (Ohio), 170.

Washington, George, intercedes for Spencer, 114.

Washington's birthday celebration, 83.

Waugh, B., and Mason, T., publishers, xxii.

Waw-paw-maw-quah. See White Loon.

Wawpunnoo, White Loon's brother, 74; in sports,
104-5.

Wayne, Gen. Anthony, conquers Northwest Indians,
xix-xx, 29, 90, 96, 97, 145; scout for, 51; builds
fort, 95.

Wea Indians, village raided, 17.

Wells, Capt. William, Indian agent, 51; Spencer's in
terview with, 114; sketch, 51-52.

West Virginia, frontiers, ix.

Western Christian Advocate, xxi, xxiii.

Wheeling (W. Va.), a river town, n.

White Loon (Waw-paw-maw-quaw) , captures Spencer,
47, 52, 89; captures Moore, 98-99; steals a horse,
53, 57J treatment of captives, 64-65, 69-70, 73;
offers sacrifice, 54; hunting, 71, 126; fishing, no;
relates adventure, 72-73; home of, 89; brother, 74;
at a feast, 104-5; burned, 113; in war party, 115-
17; later visits to Spencer, 171; characterized, 70-

7i-

Wickersham, — , owns mill, 36.
Wild cat, killed by Spencer, 118-20.
Wilkinson, Col. James, Indian expedition, 17; at Fort

Washington, 114; sketch, 114.

Wisconsin Historical Collections, 146.

Wisconsin Historical Library, xxi, xxii, 20, 49.

Willows, on the Ohio, 40; on the Maumee, 84.

Wisconsin Historical Society, Proceedings, 82.

Wolf Tribe of Iroquois, 77.

Wyandot Indians, captive among, 29; village, 135;

Spencer left with, 136-37.
Wood Creek, route via, 167.
Wyllys, Maj. John, defeat, 80.
YORK (Ont.), 157-
Yorktown (Va.), surrender at, 115.
Youghiogheny River, emigrants on, xvi, 9.

188

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