Native American Teepee

Brief history of Loudonville, Ohio:... more

by R A W M

Title

Native American Teepee

Artist

R A W M

Medium

Photograph

Description

Brief history of Loudonville, Ohio:

EARLY in our history, when we were yet a part of the Old Northwest Territory, and previous to settlement by the Aryan peoples, that part of Ohio which we now occupy was inhabited by another race-the American Indian-and previous to their occupancy we have every reason to believe, there lived here a still more numerous, powerful and civilized race of men-the Mound Builders-who have left their indelible marks in the various earthworks, fortifications, mounds and cemetery sites-monuments which number at least 10,000 in Ohio alone, and several of which are within short distances of our town. All speculation and discussion of this ancient race, we must regard as foreign to our present task.

However, a short consideration of the American Indian-the various Ohio tribes-as being the immediate predecessors and relentless foe of the pioneer settlers of Ohio, merits a brief consideration. During the 18th century, there were resident within the borders of the State of Ohio, at least six distinct Indian tribes, as follows: Wyandots, Shawnee, Ottawas, Mingoes, Miamis, and Dela-wares, the latter tribe alone occupying the Muskingum Valley. This tribe has been awarded a higher place by Cooper, the novelist, and Heckewelder, the Moravian missionary, than general history would seem they deserve. Heckewelder has preserved a Delaware tradition, that many hundred years ago, the Leni Lenape resided in the western part of the American continent, that by slow migrations they at length settled eastward on the Hudson, Potomac, Delaware and Susquehanna rivers, making the Delaware the center of their possessions and from which they derive their name.

Contact with the colonists of New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland by degrees forced them westward and by 1740 we find them, by invitation of the Wyandots, locating in Ohio, around the head-waters of the Muskingum, with their capital at the confluence of the east and west branches of that river-where now is situated the city of Coshocton. In this territory they lived, grew and flourished and became a powerful nation capable of mustering 900 warriors and having a total number of nearly 3000 souls. The Delaware nation was divided into the Turkey, Turtle and Wolf or Munsie tribes, the latter being the most warlike, and residing on the west branch of the Muskingum -the Walhonding and Mohican rivers. The principal chief of the Wolf tribe was the relentless foe of the whites-the warlike Captain Pipe, or, in the Delaware tongue, Hob-o-can.

This chief was at first friendly, and history records that at the time of landing of the Ohio Company's Mayflower at the site of Marietta, Captain Pipe and his warriors were encamped on the east point, he and his warriors warmly welcoming the adventurers to the Ohio country. This was in 1788; yet how different was the attitude of the Pipe and his tribe in 1791, when at St. Clair's defeat he said he "tomahawked white men until his arm failed him." He was born in Pennsylvania about 1740, but when or where he died, history does not surely record. From 1778 to 1800 he was the warlike spirit of the Delawares. He it was who opposed the pleadings of the missionary, Heckewelder, and the peace chief, White Eyes at the council of Coshocton, when Heckewelder and White Eyes pleaded that the Delawares remain neutral in the Revolutionary struggle then on. So great was the Pipe's hatred to the American colonist, and so warm his love for his Catholic French Canadian, that he split his tribe, and he with his followers Joined the British in Canada and fought side-by-side with the English redcoats against colonial independence. After the final peace, in 1783, he, with the remnant of his tribe, returned to their old hunting ground-the head-waters of the Muskingum- our immediate vicinity. He at this time resided at a town of his own, called Pipestown, located about three miles southwest of the present village of Jeromeville, Ashland County. Pipe also resided a part of his time at Helltown, a small Delaware village on the Clearfork, in Hanover Township, about three miles southwest of Loudonville.

This town was small and was abandoned in 1782, after Crawford's expedition against the Sandusky Indians. On Crawford's approach, although not near the town, the Indians, becoming alarmed, fled farther north and the next year (1783) erected Greentown, on a prominent bluff over-looking the Blackfork. The town was located about three miles west of the present village of Perrysville, on the farm now owned by Mr. H. P. Royer. This became an important and well chosen town, the river on the south facing the bluff, while to the north and almost surrounding it, was an almost impassable alder swamp. The advantage of such a position can well be appreciated when it is re- membered that practically all Indian travel was by water, while their natural enemies-the whites-traveled mostly overland.

The village contained a large bark council house and about 150 cabins. It was on the south branch of the old Duquesne-Sandusky trail, which passed about one-quarter mile to the north. Thos. Armstrong was the chief, and Johnnycake, Tom Lyons, Billy Dowdee and Thomas Jelloway were well remembered and eccentric Indians. The village was burned in 1812, its destruction being the immediate cause of the Copus and other massacres in Ashland County. Captain Pipe-a surly, unfriendly Indian-late in his career fully realized the futility of resist- ing the advent of the whites, and mildly submitted to the inevitable. He, also, was taken west with the Delawares and never again returned to the Mohican hills he loved so well.

Of other Indians, there were about 150 Connecticut Mohegans-the last of the Mohicans-who resided with their chief, Captain John, about eight miles north of Loudonville, near Mohican. The town was called Mohegan Johnstown. From this town and tribe the Mohican river and the village of Mohican derive their names. Of other Delaware towns, we may mention White Woman's Town on the Walhonding, deriving its name from a white woman, Mary Harris, a Delaware captive who lived there. Cos-hoc-ton, where Coshocton now stands, as before said, was the Delaware capital. Here lived and ruled succes- sively Chiefs Shingiss, Netawatwees, Bockonghelas, White Eyes and Killbuck. Up the Tuscarawas branch a few miles was Chief Newcomerstown, and farther north on the same stream, near the present village of Bolivar, Stark County, was the village of Tuscorora, a large and populous town in 1761, when Christian Post attempted to establish a mission here. It was in existence as late as 1763, when Colonel Rogers returned from Detroit, but was soon after abandoned. Beaverhatstown was south of Wooster and Killbucks town, on the site of Holmesville, Holmes County. On the Jerome fork of the Mohican was Jeromestown, named after Jean Baptiste Jerome, a French fur trader residing here. This was on or near where Jeromeville now stands. Custaloga, Eagle Feather and Big Cat were other well known Delaware chiefs.

Through our immediate vicinity passed a number of Indian trails. The main one was the south branch of the old Duquesne-Sandusky trail. This was the main east and west thoroughfare from Fort Duquesne, now Pittsburg, to Sandusky and Detroit. Its general course was from about two miles south of Wooster, west through Wayne County, north of OdeIVs and south of Long Lake, west through the Workman settlement, along Lakefork to about one-quarter mile north of Loudonville, where it skirted south of Bald-knob and on west up the Blackfork through Perrysville, north of old Greentown, on up the Blackfork through or near Spring Mill on to Sandusky and Detroit. This was the main east and west overland route of travel,-the route taken by Colonel Rogers and his troops on their return from Detroit in 1763-the route taken by the unfortunate Colonel Crawford in 1782-and the path followed by Captain Douglass and by the commands of Crooks and of Beal in the war of 1812.

This main trail had a number of spurs to nearby localities. One such left the main trail just east of the Lakefork Bridge on the Loudonville and Wooster road, and followed the Lakefork north to Mohican Johnstown, on to Pipe's and Jeromestown; another, leaving the main trail at the same place, followed the Lakefork south to its confluence with the Blackfork, thence down the east side of the Mohican to the Delaware capital. In the immediate vicinity of Loudonville there was a branch off in a general southwest direction to Helltown and on to the Scioto towns. The first white man, recorded by authentic history, who ever visited our vicinity was John Smith. Smith, when 18 years of age, had been taken captive by the Delawares in Pennsylvania, brought to one of their Muskingum towns and adopted into the tribe. He resided with them a number of years. His own diary gives the events of a journey made in 1756, when in company with a Delaware Indian, they came by canoe up the west fork of the Muskingum to head-water, and overland to the Conesdahorie (either Black or Sandusky river), and down the latter stream to Lake Erie. Thus Smith was the first white man to view the location of our village,-and what view of unrivalled beauty it must have been,-a mingling of the graceful outline of hills and valleys with the profuse and natural distribution of magnificent forests and ever- varying, yet ever-beautiful outline of water, which cheers, beautifies and animates everything with its life-giving presence. These, the essential features of all primeval landscapes, were here combined in their most ultimate perfection. Indeed, it would perhaps be beyond the power of the most lively fancy, or most graphic pen, to adequately describe a more beautiful scene than that which here first presented itself to the eye of this Delaware captive. Yet all this primal beauty,-in the short space of a human life-time,-was destined to lose its pristine beauty and become the scene of ever-varying human handiwork. Primitive forests vanish, green hills become bare, and the white farmhouses of Aryan mankind usurp the place of the small Indian wigwam.

By 1812 the vicinity hereabouts, having been fairly purged of the relentless red-man, was ready for the cabin of the Western Pioneer. Indeed, some of the more venturesome and bold awaited not the going of the savage, but with courageous mien, bold heart and indomitable energy, pressed in among the westward retreating Delawares, and selecting the most likely and desirable sites, proceeded to hew a home from this wilderness of the West. History records that between 1809 and 1812 there were, on the Clearfork, the families of Daniel Lewis, James Cunningham and Peter Kinney; on the Black-fork, Henry McCarty, Thomas Coulter, Noah Castor, Alien Oliver, George Crawford, David Davis, Edward Haley, John Davis, Melzer Charles, Bazel Tannyhill, Joseph Jones, Eben Rice, and the brothers, Joseph, Lewis, Calvin and Harvey Hill.

On the Jerome and Lakefork, James L. Priest, William Greenlee, Thomas Oram, Joseph Oram, Mordecai Chilcote, Victor Metcalf, Jacob Lybarger, William Bryan, James Conoly, Benjamin Bunn, James Slater, James Bryan, Elias Chilcote, James Collyer, George Eckley, and others not recorded. As will be noted, these families were quite widely located, yet fairly well distributed over the townships of Hanover, Green and Lake, yet unorganized. The abode of these pioneers was usually a one-room log cabin, with its log fireplace, split clapboard weighted roof, one door and greased paper window. The latch-string was always out and domestic and neighborhood peace reigned supreme. Each settler had his small clearing, where corn, potatoes, vegetables and tobacco were grown. Wild game and the fruits of the chase furnished a large share of their daily sustenance. Flour mills were at inconvenient distances, the nearest being Shrimplins and Stebbs, who had two-one on Owl Creek and one near Wooster. Consequently each family had its hand mill and corn pounder. The nearest trading points were Mansfield, Mt. Vernon and Wooster, all three small villages of a few cabins each. The nearest good trading point was Zanesville, from which place salt and flour were brought up the Muskingum by canoe or poling rude flat-boats. If the settler wanted provisions from Mt. Vernon or Wooster, he made the journey a-foot or horseback, no small task in those days. The trails were merely bridle paths through the forests, marked by blazed trees along the way. The forests were still infested with all manner of wild animals, and what was still more dangerous, numerous Mingo and Delaware hunting parties.

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December 9th, 2014