That Dark and Bloody River

by Allan Eckert

  The Peter Patrick party escaped disaster, but others didn’t. Four hardy adventurers—Richard Wallace, Judge William Jack, Maj. James Wilson and Col. Alexander Barr—headed downstream together to claim lands, reasonably confident they would have no problem with the Indians. Wallace, who had been quartermaster with Col. Lochry’s force when it was ambushed on the Ohio four years earlier, had spent a couple of years in captivity. He told the others he knew the Shawnees well, had been adopted by them and had made many friends among them. They would be pleased, he assured his companions, to see him and would tell him the best lands to claim. He couldn’t have been more incorrect. They were attacked and, though Wilson and Jack escaped, both Wallace and Barr were killed. Not long after that, Andrew Zane, despite all his frontier experience, was in the process of crossing the Scioto River when he was killed by the long shot of a Shawnee he never even saw.

  Other settlers were not deterred by the reports of such misfortunes, and a veritable boom of new settlements sprang up, although those south and east of the Ohio were considerably safer now from attack than those on the Ohio side. The new settlement of Limestone, where John Hinkson’s Blockhouse had been burned, was attracting many settlers bound for the Kentucky interior, and a new town named Washington, seven miles inland from Limestone on the road to Blue Licks and Lexington, already had 31 cabins. Up the Great Kanawha at Campbell’s Creek, Capt. John Dickinson claimed, with impunity, 502 acres that took in the old Indian Salt Springs, which he named Big Buffalo Lick. And a mile up the Little Kanawha from the Ohio, Capt. James Neal officially established his new settlement, named Neal’s Station.642 Twenty miles below the mouth of the Little Kanawha, a group of Scots families under Judge Joseph Wood established a settlement between the mouths of Lee’s Creek and Pond Creek and named it Belleville.643 Not far from the long-established Ryerson’s Station, on the headwaters of Wheeling Creek, the new Wise’s Mill was built among the many German settlers on Tenmile Creek, while only a few miles from there Robert Whortem built a little settlement with a blockhouse and called it Whortem’s Station.644 About this same time Youghiogheny County was divided into Brooke and Hancock counties, and experienced surveyor Ben Johnson, Jr., spent a busy week marking out and claiming some 7,000 acres in the newly formed Brooke County, not far from where the Cuppy family had just resettled and a few miles from the new Bill Logan place on King’s Creek. Fifteen miles below Fort McIntosh, on the south side of the river and several miles up Mud Creek, William Langfitt established his place, but quickly abandoned it, hiding four sacks of seed corn, when some Indians were seen hovering in the area, and he moved to where the Campbells had settled on King’s Creek.645

  Two events, one on each side of the Ohio, were indicative of the sweeping changes being made. On the south side of the river, the Kentuckians gathered at Danville in a convention to discuss separating from Virginia and making Kentucky County a new state in its own right.646 On the Ohio side of the river the Congress of the United States, immediately upon ratification of the Fort McIntosh Treaty, established what it called the Seven Ranges. These were seven ranges of townships that were to be the first public lands ever surveyed by the general government in the Ohio country. The boundaries of the tract were sharply drawn, beginning at Pennsylvania’s western border on the north side of the Ohio River and extending 42 miles due west, then from there straight south to the Ohio River again, almost at the mouth of the Little Muskingum River, with the Ohio River being the southern and eastern border. With that, the official invasion of the Ohio country by the United States was begun.

  With all this progress—or what some were pompously calling the “advance of civilization”—a certain carelessness had manifested itself among those traveling on the Ohio, even among those who were experienced bordermen and should have known better. Old John Wetzel was one of these. He and a neighbor, William Miller, set off on a hunting trip down the Ohio. In previous days they would have stayed close to the center of the river, keeping out of effective range of rifle shots from either shore. This time, feeling it was safe enough to do so, they paddled along close to the Ohio shore. It was a serious mistake.

  As they passed near the relatively new Baker’s Station on Cresap’s Bottom, two miles above the mouth of Fish Creek, three Indians appeared on shore and shot at them. One of the balls struck Old John Wetzel in the side, and he half toppled, dropping his paddle. Miller, unharmed, leaped from the canoe and, by alternately diving and surfacing, quickly got out of range and then swam across the river. Wetzel, seriously wounded, stood up as the canoe drifted to the shore and leaped out onto the bank in a desperate effort to escape. Instead of hard ground, the shore here was deep mud, and he sank into it over his knees. Firmly wedged, he watched helplessly as one of the Indians appeared on the adjacent shore, deliberately reloaded and shot at him again. This time the ball went through his heart and killed him. The warrior scalped him but left the body there, projecting from the mud.

  That was where Lewis Wetzel had found him the following day, after learning from the escaped Miller what had happened. With considerable difficulty and overcome with immense grief, he had managed to pull his father’s body to shore and bury it. A few days later, returning to the site with Jacob and Martin, the three brothers had disinterred the body of their father, taken it back to their own place on Wheeling Creek and reburied it.647

  Now, as he peered from hiding at the three Indians in their camp on the bank of Stillwater Creek, the hatred within Lewis Wetzel nearly choked him. It was unlikely that these Indians were the ones that had killed his father, but that was of no consequence. They were Indians, and that was all that mattered … or would ever matter. His only real concern now was how he could kill them all with none escaping.

  The three warriors had rifles, tomahawks and knives, and so to attempt rushing them could well be suicide. Taking a shot would kill one, but two would escape. So he waited. The three Wyandots ate their meal, talked for a while and then, with their guns on the ground beside them, rolled up in their blankets and lay down. They stirred off and on for a half-hour or more and then were finally still. When he was certain they were fast asleep, Wetzel set his gun aside and moved slowly toward them as soundlessly as a cloud shadow moves across the land, knife in his left hand, tomahawk in his right.

  Stopping between the first two, who lay on their backs breathing slowly and deeply, he wasted no time. With a sudden swift stroke he plunged his knife directly into the heart of one, who gave a half groan and tried to sit up but failed. At the same time he slammed his tomahawk deep into the temple of the other, who stiffened, then started kicking his legs spastically. Wetzel jerked the tomahawk free and stepped over him quickly to the third, who had grunted a query and was just rising to a sitting position, and struck him with the bloody tomahawk blade in the nape, instantly killing him.

  “That don’t settle the score yet,” he said aloud. “Not by a long ways.”648

  [October 11, 1785—Tuesday]

  John Madison, the well-dressed man who arrived at Wheeling today, was obviously wealthy and, from what he said, just as obviously interested in claiming lands. Scion of a very wealthy family of Port Conway, Virginia, he had many very influential friends in government, not the least of whom was his own brother, James, who had been a member of the Continental Congress and who was now deeply involved in the newly forming Continental Convention.649

  It had been from George Washington himself, via his brother, that John Madison had learned about the lands Washington had claimed 15 years earlier up the Big Sandy River, and he decided that he wanted to claim some of those same lands for himself, as well as some in his brother’s name. Well informed of the dangers extant in such a pursuit, he had been for several weeks looking for the best possible man to guide him to the Big Sandy and assist him in claiming such lands. The man he wanted had to have extensive experience in fighting and outwitting the Indians and an unparalleled grasp of wilderness survival; a man who in any conceivable emergency, could keep his head. H
is search began in the Redstone Old Fort area, at Brownsville, and continued as he reached Pittsburgh. With a high fee in the offing for such service, he had many applicants for the job, but he had turned all of them down after brief interviews.

  While in Pittsburgh, however, Madison heard mention of a young man who seemed to have all the qualities he was seeking, and the more he inquired about him, the more convinced he was that the man in question was exactly the man he wanted. That was why he had now come to Wheeling, since the object of his search lived several miles up Wheeling Creek. The man he sought had just come back from stalking three Indians in their own camp and singlehandedly killing all three with hand weapons. That man was Lewis Wetzel.

  At first Wetzel was disinclined to take the job. Looking after a novice in the woods was, he had long ago decided, a quick way to get the novice—and perhaps himself as well—killed. John Madison, however, was insistent and kept raising the amount he would pay Wetzel to undertake the project, until that payment finally became more than the frontiersman had ever earned in any one year. As an added incentive, Madison promised Wetzel that not only would he reimburse him fully for all equipment and supplies purchased for the project, he would also give him 1,000 acres of the claims they made and, if he was satisfied by Wetzel’s service over the six or eight months they would be gone, a substantial bonus as well.

  Wetzel had never been a mercenary individual, but all this icing added to the cake was more than he could resist. “I’ll do it,” he said at last—but he still wasn’t looking forward to it.

  [November 10, 1785—Thursday]

  In their small quarters in the new fort on the shore of the Ohio River only a short distance above the mouth of the Great Miami River, Richard Butler and George Rogers Clark, both treaty commissioners for the United States, sat on opposite sides of the small table and quietly discussed the events that had brought them to this place.650 As Clark continued to offer helpful reminders of what needed to be said to the President of the United States Congress, Butler wrote in strong, swift strokes:

  Mouth of the Big Miami—November 10th, 1785

  Sir:

  We have now the honor to inform your Excellency that after surmounting the many difficulties and disappointments attendant on so long an in-land journey, and business of this kind, we meet at this place on the 22d October ultimo, without having sustained any injury or loss.

  On our arrival we found that the Indian Nations in general had not received our invitations to treat with the cordiality which we expected; but the Miami Nation had taken away the horses of our messengers, and treated their own persons in a manner hitherto unknown among the Nations of the West. No positive answer, however, being given to our invitations, we conceived that it would not be prudent nor consistent with our duty to relinquish the business in its then doubtful state. We therefore concluded to stay until we should be enabled to determine fully whether the Indians were for peace or war. For this purpose we sent two of the same messengers with two Indians to inform the Nations whom we had invited, of our arrival at the place of treaty, and to demand immediate answers to our messages. We recommended it to the chiefs of the Miami Nation to make reparations for the insult that they had offered to the United States in their ill treatment of our messengers while it might be in their power, since they might assure themselves that such unmerited insult would not be passed over in silence; that the answers of the Nations who were invited would determine us either to stay and treat with them as we had proposed, or to return and make report of their Conduct to Congress.

  Affairs being thus arranged, we concluded that as the time which it would necessarily take up, either to await the answers of the Indians, or to go through the business of a treaty with them, should they agree to attend, would render it impracticable for the troops to return even to the Muskingum this winter; and as this is the place to which Colonel Harmar was authorized by a resolution of Congress of June last, to extend his posts for the purpose of keeping off illegal settlers from the territory of the United States, we directed Major Finney to proceed to build a place of security and comfort for the troops and stores, which might answer all the purposes designed by that resolution, as well as protect the treaty. This work [near the mouth of the Great Miami River] he began on the 25th day of October, and by his own industry, seconded by that of all his officers, whose exertions do them great honor, has now perfectly secured the post, and got the troops into very comfortable blockhouses for the winter. The work is a quadrangle, with a strong block-house at each corner, forming a defence for each face of the work. The curtains are strong pickets, well set in the ground, and in the center of two curtains fronting each other, and forming part of the curtain, are a guard-house and provision store for the goods designed for the treaty.

  A few days since a man of the Shawanese arrived, who was sent by the chiefs of his nation to inform us that they were ready to come, and would be with us in a short time. A Wyandotte hath since arrived, who informs us that the whole of the Western tribes will attend, and that the horses, &c, taken from our messengers will be restored.

  We find by the frequent robberies and murders committed on the inhabitants on the south side of the Ohio by the different Indians, that some decision is really necessary, the people being no longer able to bear such treatment. Many are deprived of every horse, and left with large families to labor out their substance with a hoe. This post, we hope, will give them some temporary safety, and very probably answer some future good purposes, should the Indians require correction.

  The Miami River is found to be boatable in the Spring and the early part of the Summer about 80 miles up, to the portage between it and the Miami or Omi River, which empties itself into Lake Erie.651 The ground at the confluence of this and the Ohio River being very low is covered by every fresh. This obliges us to fix one mile above the mouth of Miami, on the north bank of the Ohio, it being the first safe bank we could find.

  Not having heard from our last messengers, we have nothing farther to communicate, but that your Excellency may assure yourself that no exertion shall be wanting on our part to bring matters to a happy and honorable issue with the Indians for the interest of the United States.

  With the highest respect, we have the honor to be, Sir,

  Your Excellency’s most obt and hbl. sevts.

  G. R. Clark

  Richd. Butler

  His Excellency

  The President of Congress

  [January 31, 1786—Tuesday]

  The Shawnee delegation was led by Wehyehpihehrsehnwah—Blue Jacket—who was now principal chief of the Maykujay sept of their tribe. That powerful position had been transferred to him by Chief Moluntha who, because of the frailties of his age and infirmities of his health, had recently stepped down from leadership of the sept. The others of the delegation included the warriors Chiksika, Tecumseh and Wasegoboah, along with some others. With them as well, despite his poor health, was old Chief Moluntha and his huge wife, Nonhelema.

  This group of Shawnees had come here to the mouth of the Great Miami to view firsthand the negotiations that were being conducted between the American commissioners and the band of 300 pacifistic Shawnees who, without official tribal sanction, had been led here by the subchief Kekewapilethy—Tame Hawk.652

  This newly arrived group of Shawnees under Blue Jacket, furious at Kekewapilethy for his effrontery in taking tribal matters into his own hands, observed with silent anger the fortification—being called Fort Finney—that the whites had had the temerity to build here in the Ohio country, nearly a mile above the river’s mouth, under the guise that it was merely a temporary structure and would be dismantled when the treaty talks were concluded.

  This Fort Finney treaty talk was the result of what had begun early last summer, when delegations of Americans had started moving through the Ohio, Indiana and Michigan countries, inviting the various chiefs and delegates of their nations to attend the important treaty that was originally scheduled by them to begin the first
day of the Harvest Moon at the Great Miami’s mouth.

  How little the Americans understood or cared about the Indians in general was clearly apparent from the fact that they had not only selected this site for the talks, but had arranged to hold them at a time when councils simply were not held because of harvesting, hunting, and other autumn business requiring the tribes’ attentions.

  A number of American peace delegations had moved through the Northwest all last year, visiting Shawnees, Miamis, Delawares, Wyandots and other tribes, traveling in separate parties headed by Samuel Robertson, James Elliott, William Clark and Daniel Rinkings. Even though uninvited into their country, most of the emissaries had been received politely enough by the tribes, except for a few occasions when they had been treated contemptuously and, on occasion, their lives threatened.

  The general displeasure of the tribes over the visits was voiced at one of the councils held for these delegates at Lower Sandusky last September 20, where Tarhe, now the most prominent of the Wyandot chiefs, presided.653 He summed up the feelings of the tribes by speaking in a voice filled with constrained politeness.

  “Brother Americans, we acknowledge the receipt of your messages calling us to the mouth of the Big Miami River on the Ohio, to a treaty to be held there ten days from this date. When we consider that important business already transacted with you at Forts Stanwix and McIntosh has not yet had time to be made known and determined upon by those nations concerned in it throughout this great country, we cannot help saying that you have moved too quickly. Time must be allowed for the tribes to hold council among themselves to consider your proposals carefully. Such councils are essential if we are ever to accomplish the desirable end of peace and make it permanent.