That Dark and Bloody River

by Allan Eckert

  Lord Dunmore’s War had ended, and now, with relative peace restored to the Ohio Valley, once again the Americans were turning their thoughts to where they had by and large left off early last spring—to the claiming and settling of more Indian lands.

  [April 19, 1775—Wednesday]

  Twenty-seven days ago at the Virginia Convention in Richmond, Patrick Henry had thundered out seven words that had touched the American colonials to the core; seven words that had echoed and reechoed ever since and undoubtedly would continue to do so for a long time to come:

  “… give me liberty or give me death!”256

  Today those fateful words became reality when Lt. Col. Francis Smith and Marine Maj. John Pitcairn arrived with a force of Redcoats at Lexington, Massachusetts near dawn and encountered a group of minutemen under John Parker. When the British began advancing upon them, Parker called to his men: “Stand your ground. Don’t fire unless fired upon. But if they mean to have a war, let it begin here.”

  And so it did. Eight of the minutemen dropped under the blast of musket fire from Smith’s force, and the remainder were forced to retreat at bayonet point. The British then cut down a liberty pole at Concord and skirmished with the militia at Concord bridge.

  Reinforcements arrived at Lexington for the British under command of Brig. Gen. Sir Hugh Percy, bringing with them a six-pounder cannon and raising the British strength to 1,800 men. But the militia were reinforced as well and quickly became a force of 4,000 men. Percy was forced to retreat after the American marksmen struck with devastating accuracy, and the Redcoats returned to Boston with 65 of their men having been killed, including 15 officers, 173 others wounded and 26 missing.

  Come what may, today the American Revolution had begun.

  [July 25, 1775—Tuesday]

  As everyone had anticipated—the Indians as well as the Americans—no one paid much attention to the accords reached between Lord Dunmore and the Indians at Camp Charlotte. As soon as the weather permitted this past spring, a new flood of land-claimers, surveyors, settlers and adventurers poured into the Ohio Valley.

  The upper Ohio Valley was experiencing the greatest influx of settlers. George Washington, already holding some of the most extensive land claims in that area, only ten days ago had received from Lord Dunmore a patent for another 3,000 acres of and at the mouth of Beaver River, but he suspected he wouldn’t be doing anything much in that area for quite a while, as the war was keeping him very busy. Wheeling, though still not laid out as such, could now almost be described as a town on its own, and settlements such as Catfish Camp, Baker’s Bottom, McMechen’s Settlement and others were also growing rapidly. Some that had been temporarily abandoned during the war, such as McMechen’s, had been burned by the Indians and had to be rebuilt. The Tomlinsons, having returned to their Grave Creek Flats settlement after briefly taking refuge at Redstone, now found many other settlers coming in to sink roots near them, Maj. William Crawford among that number. So much had the population of the area increased over the past months—by several thousand, in fact—that a second Augusta County court was established by Virginia at Pittsburgh, and court sessions would now be held alternately at Staunton and Fort Pitt.

  The second greatest surge of settlement was aimed at Kentucky. Far to the south on the Watauga tributary of the South Holston River, Daniel Boone, having been discharged from the militia, had accepted employment from a big-time land promoter named Richard Henderson, who, with a group of other men, established the Transylvania Land Company with the view of founding a new republic to be called Transylvania.257 Boone, leading a force of 30 workmen, had been commissioned to enter that land, create a Wilderness Road leading into it, bring prospective settlers there and establish the new government and its settlements.

  With the war in progress and America endeavoring to separate itself from British rule and become established as a union of independent states, Henderson dealt directly with the Indians for the purchase of 20 million acres of land, that land being in the Kentucky country. He had heard that the Cherokees claimed this land as their own, and so it was to them he made his offer to buy. Though the Cherokees had no real title to the land, either by habitation or conquest, in a treaty council with Henderson’s representatives at Sycamore Shoals on the Watauga on March 17, they nevertheless agreed to the sale. For the sum of $10,000 in guns and goods, the deal was consummated on April 20. Henderson immediately advertised these lands for sale and was getting many buyers, as well as much opposition from governmental officials on grounds that his whole operation, including the purchase from the Cherokees, was illegal. Meanwhile Boone had already traveled overland to the Kentucky River on his Wilderness Road and was busily laying out the settlement of Boonesboro at a salt lick some 60 yards from the left bank of the river. There were some scattered Indian attacks and a few men were killed, but the rest remained undaunted and the settlement progressed. Boone intended to have his entire family relocated here by September.

  George Rogers Clark was intrigued by the Kentucky country and made his move in that direction, too. In March he had paddled down to the Kentucky River and there became associated with the party already surveying for the Ohio Land Company. A week or so later, on April 1, he wrote to his brother:

  I have engaged as deputy surveyor under Captain Hancock Lee for to lay out lands on ye Kentuck, for ye Ohio company, at ye rate of £80 year and ye privilege of taking what land I want.

  Nine weeks later, on June 6, he wrote again, this time from the new settlement of Leestown. His enthusiasm for what was occurring in Kentucky was apparent. He wrote:

  Colonel Henderson is here and claims all ye land below Kentucke. If his claim should be good, land may be got reasonable enough, and as good as any in ye world.… We have laid out a town 75 miles up ye Kentucke, where I intend to live, and I don’t doubt but there will be 50 families living in it by Christmas.

  Clark, however, quickly became disenchanted with Henderson and his grandiose schemes. Siding with the Virginia government, he considered it an illegal purchase especially since it included lands that were part of Virginia’s own western lands in the extensive Fincastle County. Clark was also honest enough to admit to himself that the Kentucky settlers were giving the Indians considerable provocation, and he marveled that the red men had been so restrained in retaliating. There had been some isolated killings, true, along with some destruction of cattle and theft of horses, but these were without exception the work of bands of young bucks evidently out to make their marks as warriors, not the well-organized attacks that would have occurred had they been tribally sanctioned. With the Kickapoos far to the west, however, it was another matter. They had been crossing the lower Ohio from the Illinois country in ever increasing numbers, ascending the Cumberland River and making raids in the Kentucky settlements from the west. With that growing problem and the certainty in his own mind that it was only a matter of time before the Shawnees started retaliating in earnest, Clark felt strongly that the settlers here in central Kentucky were going to need government protection.

  With this in mind he set out for Williamsburg to ask Virginia officials not only to send troops to protect Kentucky settlements but to vigorously oppose Henderson’s agents, who were already applying to the Continental Congress to validate Henderson’s treaty and the vast purchase he had made from the Cherokees. Clark believed it was imperative that Virginia create a new county out of the westernmost Fincastle lands, a great tract to be called Kentucky County, from which the settlers would have the right to elect their own delegates to the Assembly.

  Certainly there would very soon be quite enough people for a county government such as he proposed. James Harrod and his people had returned to the so-called Buffalo Wallow of Kentucky to reestablish his Harrodsburg Settlement, still better known as St. Asaph’s, and another new settlement was under way at nearby Boiling Springs. John Floyd was busy with his crew, claiming and settling large tracts of Kentucky lands, and Simon Kenton, after wintering with his new part
ner, Thomas Williams, at the mouth of Cabin Creek, finally landed at the mouth of Limestone Creek, went inland and discovered the fabled Kentucky canelands and the great Blue Licks. Already they had set up camp there and were considering establishing a real settlement. George McClelland was erecting a station for his little party on North Elkhorn Creek, and Robert Patterson had ascended the South Elkhorn and was busy making tomahawk improvements in that area when Simon Kenton arrived and visited just as word was brought of the Battle of Lexington in Massachusetts. Patterson immediately named his new settlement Lexington in honor of that first victory of the Revolution.258

  Thomas Hinkson, too, was one of those visiting Kentucky for the first time. He ascended the Licking River and, enthralled with what he found, established a new settlement in an area dubbed The Cedars. By March 15, his party had built a small fortification and raised a cabin for each of the 15 men, and he named this settlement Hinkson’s Station. It was about this time that on several occasions he observed a Shawnee following him—a warrior named Wipey. Deciding in his own mind that the Indian meant eventually to kill him, the next time he caught sight of him, he turned and approached. Wipey smiled and held out his hand, but Hinkson simply raised his rifle and coldly shot the Indian dead, then hid his body in a clump of brush well off the trail.

  That sort of unprovoked Indian killing had become something of a game for many of the settlers, who considered the Indians as nothing more than vermin. Any Indian who showed himself on the Ohio shore, as would-be settlers were passing downstream, ran the risk of being shot just for the fun of it. Alexander Scott, heading downriver to make claims, spied a young Indian man hunting near the mouth of the Muskingum. The Indian quickly ducked into cover, but Scott knew he was still there watching and so he paddled his canoe close to shore and, smiling, called in a friendly way, “Hey, c’mon out. Let’s you’n me talk. I got some t’bacca here I’ll share with you.”

  The canoe coasted to shore and lodged itself. Scott set aside his paddle and, still smiling in a pleasant manner, began loading his pipe. The Indian pushed his way out of the bushes and slowly approached, holding his rifle at an angle before him but not in a particularly threatening manner. Scott lifted a hand as if to wave to him and seemed to inadvertently knock the pipe out of his own mouth. It fell into the canoe, and he immediately bent over and reached down for it. When he straightened, however, it was with a cocked flintlock pistol in his hand, and before the young hunter could react, a bullet smashed through his chest, killing him. Scott, continuing to smile, stepped ashore, took the man’s gun, powderhorn, knife and tomahawk, along with his necessaries pouch and moccasins, then rolled the body into the river and watched the current carry it a dozen feet or so before it sank. He then continued his journey. He was still smiling.

  Peter Parchment, noted for his hatred of Indians, was only a mile or so above Pittsburgh on April 23, walking along the bank of the Allegheny, when he spied, sitting on the shore ahead of him, a Delaware Indian drinking from a jug and so intoxicated he had difficulty bringing the container up to his mouth without spilling it. Parchment, unseen, unheard, crept up behind and slammed his tomahawk into the man’s head. The jug fell from his hands and rolled into the river, where it sank. Parchment scalped the Indian and rolled him into the river, where he sank.

  Three days later, on April 26, less than a half-mile from that spot, Parchment encountered another Delaware, this one coming toward him on a faint trail. They nodded to one another and muttered a greeting as they passed. One step beyond, Parchment whirled and buried his tomahawk in the man’s nape, severing the spinal cord. Glancing around, Parchment spied a huge sycamore with a large hollow about four feet off the ground. He dragged the body there and, with some difficulty, crammed it into the hollow until it fell from sight. He was breathing heavily when he finished and cursed the fact that he had to hide bodies like this, just because this was a period of nominal peace. So far as he was concerned, there would never be peace between the Indians and whites.

  Thus far the insurrection in the east had been having relatively little effect on the frontier, except for the fact that there were more new faces here now, many of them men who had decided it was safer and more profitable to claim land here than to be drafted into war service. George Washington, who usually tried to get here each spring for at least a little while, had been absent this year. Not quite six weeks ago—on June 17—he had been elected by the Second Continental Congress at Philadelphia as commander-in-chief of the American forces. His reaction was that he thought the appointment really should have gone to Gen. Andrew Lewis.

  On that same day the Battle of Bunker Hill had been fought, and this time the Americans were the losers, but the British paid a stiff price for their victory, losing 1,150 men. The Americans themselves lost 411. Washington headed for Massachusetts as soon as possible, arriving there and taking command on July 3.

  One significant effect the young revolution was having on the frontier was that it caused the planned council with the Indians at Fort Pitt to be canceled. A few Delawares and Mingoes had shown up and met in a cold, unfriendly council with John Connolly, but none of the Shawnees or delegates of other tribes had come. Nevertheless, Hokolesqua had given his word that attacks against whites descending the Ohio in boats would cease, and he didn’t require a formal treaty to make every effort to live up to that promise. Galled though they were that this new influx of whites was in contravention to those agreements, the Shawnees largely restrained themselves in deference to their chief. But little by little the feeling grew, especially among the hot-headed young braves, that if the whites were not being bound by those agreements, then why should the Shawnees?

  The very fact that two forces of whites had last fall penetrated deeply into their country had instilled a deep uneasiness within them all, and gradually they began abandoning their villages in the Scioto River drainage and moving to the far less accessible areas of the upper Mad River, Great Miami and Little Miami, some even as far as the Auglaize River and other streams that eventually flowed into the Maumee River and Lake Erie. The new Wapatomica on the upper Mad River remained their capital village, but the Chalahgawtha located on the upper Little Miami, near the mouth of Massies Creek, was now by far their largest and most populous village.259

  As part of this general movement, the surviving family of Pucksinwah moved to Chalahgawtha. In line with tribal tradition, the family of a fallen war chief became the responsibility of the tribe’s peace chief. Pucksinwah’s entire family of seven—his widow, Methotasa, eldest son Chiksika, 20, daughter Tecumapese, 18, middle son Tecumseh, 8, and the three youngest sons, an unprecedented set of five-year-old triplets named Sauwaseekau, Elkskwatawa and Lowawluwaysica—all became wards of Chiungalla, called Black Fish by the whites, who was principal chief of the Chalahgawtha sept of the Shawnees. And the new Shawnee war chief, succeeding Pucksinwah, was Shemeneto—Black Snake.

  This early in the Revolution, most of the tribes tried to remain neutral, considering the war between the whites as a struggle between father and son, a family matter in which they had no business participating. But this did not last long. The young Mohawk war chief Thayendanegea—Chief Joseph Brant—only recently named war chief of the entire Six Nations, prevailed not only upon his fellow Mohawk tribesmen but upon the entire Iroquois League to side with the British. This came as a direct result of the new Indian superintendent, Guy Johnson, nephew of Sir William, appealing to them toward this end.

  “Think!” he told them in the first general Iroquois council after the Revolution began. “Are the Americans able to give you anything more than a piece of bread and glass of rum? Are you willing to go with them and suffer them to make horses and oxen of you, to put you into wheelbarrows and bring us all into slavery?”

  The remarks struck home with his listeners, and they leaned toward British support. The leaning quickly became commitment when it came Thayendanegea’s turn to address them.

  “We long ago made a covenant with the King,�
� he told them, “and now is not the time to break it. We must remain under the King’s protection and stand forward and help him in his difficulties in this war that has begun between him and his American children. Go now! Fight for your possessions. Whatever you lose as a result, the King will make it up to you.”

  Of the six Indian nations in the Iroquois League, only the Oneidas and some of their Tuscarora wards were determined to stay neutral.

  The same decision faced the Shawnees at a great council held at Chalahgawtha and attended by 350 chiefs and subchiefs of the five Shawnee septs. For many days the council droned on, with chief after chief expressing his own feelings—and those of his own constituency—in respect to whether they should take sides in this war or remain neutral. It was much the same problem that had faced them before the French and Indian War, when they had to decide whether to remain neutral or support the French or British. They had finally chosen support of the French, and all eventually realized this was a mistake. Now a new decision had to be made, with many new considerations involved, and it worried them considerably.

  The general discussion evolved, however, to the problem most directly affecting them: the whites swarming into the Ohio Valley. Many of the chiefs were demanding freer rein to repay like with like against the settlers, who all too often shot at them on sight, who wasted so much of what Moneto had provided for His Indian children and who left such great devastation in their path. The agreements made with the white chief Dunmore at Camp Charlotte had resulted this year in the Shemanese floating down the Spaylaywitheepi in great numbers of craft, from small canoes and piroques to huge high-sided boats and great rafts upon which houses were built and small herds of cattle and horses transported.260 They came like locusts, these Shemanese, and where they stopped, they cut down the trees and burned the prairies. Worse yet, in the sacred hunting grounds of the Kan-tuck-kee, they wantonly slaughtered buffalo and elk by the hundreds, often only for the tongue or the liver or the hide, leaving the rest to rot, which was an insult to the beneficence of Moneto. Equally destructive, the horses and cattle they brought with them consumed the lush pastures that the wild herds depended upon for their own subsistence. Already the buffalo herds were fewer, their numbers smaller, and the elk had become solitary, always on the alert and far more difficult to hunt.