*/ 'h. yfi if '-U 
 
 
THE PORTAGE PATH 
 
 BY 
 
 P. P. CHERRY 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 THE WESTERN RESERVE COMPANY 
 
 AKRON, OHIO 
 
 1911 
 
Copyright, 1911, 
 
 by 
 
 P. P. Cherry 
 
 Caslon Press, Printers 
 Wooster, Ohio 
 
TO 
 CAPTAIN T. D. WOLBACH 
 
 A VETERAN OF THE OLD GUARD, SOLDIER, 
 
 CITIZEN, PATRIOT, AND MY LIFE- LONG 
 
 FRIEND, THIS LITTLE VOLUME IS 
 
 RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED. 
 
 
2 } » r *• ? M 9 /<* ff fl- /J fy /S" ^6 ^>^ 
 
 PORTAGE PATH 
 
Contents 
 
 Primitive Cuyahoga Valley - - - - iv 
 
 Foreword ------ i 
 
 An Appeal ------ 5 
 
 Captain Pipe of Portage Path — Poem - - 12 
 
 Hopocan — Captain Pipe - - - ■ ^3 
 
 Portage Path in Early Maps - - . 32 
 
 Original Surveyors of Portage Path - - - 34 
 
 Western Boundary of the United States - - 39 
 
 Center of Indian Communication - - - 48 
 
 An Historic Path: Movement to Mark it - - 77 
 
 Statue Dedicated - - - . . 81 
 
 The Story of Mar Campbell . - . 85 
 
 Building of Perry's Vessels - - - - 91 
 
 An Early River Port - . . - g^ 
 
 Part of United States. 1805 - - - - 98 
 
 Illustrations 
 
 My Chum . - . - Frontispiece 
 
 Map ..-.-. ii 
 
 Facing Page 
 
 Captain Pipe Warning Scout - - - - 13 
 
 Path Crossing Indian Clearing - - - - 33 
 
 Upper Headquarters of Original Surveyors - - 37 
 
 Quiet Stretch on the Cuyahoga - - - - 41 
 
 Map — Center of Indian Communication - - 48 
 
 Pictured Tree - - - - - "57 
 
 Statue to John Brown - - - - ■ 77 
 
 Statue to Mark Path - - - - - 81 
 
 Little Mary Campbell - - - - - 85 
 
 Mary Campbell's First Ohio Home - - - 89 
 
 Beginning of Portage Path - - - - 93 
 
 Oogontz ----- - loi 
 
The Primitive Cuyahoga Valley 
 
 There are very many vallies. vallies of renown. 
 
 But the Cuyahoga valley was fairer than these. 
 
 And greener its grasses and taller its trees 
 
 'Ere the sound of the ax in the forest had rung, 
 
 Or the mower his scythe in the meadows had swung. 
 
 In their sheltered repose looking out from the wood, 
 
 The bark-builded wigwams of the Otta was stood: 
 
 There glided the corn dance, the council-fire shone. 
 
 And against the red war-post the hatchet was thrown. 
 
 There the old smoked in silence their pipe, and the young 
 
 To the pike and the white perch their baited lines flung! 
 
 There the boy shaped his arrows, and there the shy maid 
 
 Wove her many-hued baskets and bright wampum braid. 
 
 "O stream of Hopocan! if answer of thine 
 
 Could raise from thy waters to question of mine, 
 
 Methinks through the din of thy thronged banks a moan 
 
 Of sorrow would swell for the days that are gone. 
 
 Not for thee, dull jar of the loom and the wheel. 
 
 The gliding of shuttles, the ringing of steel: 
 
 But that old voice of water, of bird and of breeze. 
 
 The dip of the wild fowl, the rustling of trees. 
 
 Whittier. 
 
MV c;nLM' 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 Many generations ago the southern shore of 
 Lake Erie was settled and inhabited for centuries by 
 a strange and mysterious race of whom history is 
 dumb and speaketh not. This almost unknown race 
 Avas the Eries, or the Cat Nation. Early French 
 map-makers called Lake Erie the "Lac La Chat." 
 
 Then, came a bark across the great sea, bear- 
 ing the seeds of life and death. Life, for a race 
 of people chosen b}^ God to carry religious and 
 political equality to all mankind — a race destined 
 to spread abroad those principles of knowledge 
 and humanity so little known in that day to races 
 of yet unknown and unborn men. The hope 
 of the world, the salvation of the poor and op- 
 pressed of every land and clime, religious tolerance 
 and broken shackles, were to go with the flag yet 
 unconceived, and with a nation of freemen }'et un- 
 born. To-day God's plan has budded and flow- 
 ered, and borne fruitage. On that nation to-day, 
 produced from the loins of these men, the sun of 
 God never sets, and wherever the flag of that na- 
 tion goes, the glorious stars and stripes, there goes 
 the hope of peace, religious tolerance, political 
 equality, the inherent right of all men to life, and 
 propert}', and the pursuit of happiness. 
 
Foreword 
 
 On the other hand, that bark, breasting the 
 stormy waves of the trackless and uncharted Atlan- 
 tic, brought the seeds of death to a strange and 
 little known people — the children of nature — the 
 natives of a new world, and yet, the eldest born; 
 for long before Europe raised its head above the 
 wilderness of waters, America presented an un- 
 broken line of hill and plain and mountain from 
 the threatening waters of the Atlantic to those of 
 the quiet Pacific. 
 
 It was faith that made these wanderers from 
 the oppressive shores of Europe Men. It was 
 faith that enabled Parson Robinson, standing on 
 the shores of the old world, to say to that little 
 band of pilgrims strong in heart: "There will 
 never be an age when there will not be a better one 
 to come. Whatever happens to this one or that, 
 it matters not; it is the destinj' of these people to 
 sail. God's time has come. The sea may rage. 
 The savages of an unknown land may uplift their 
 weapons of war, but the time has come for the 
 truth to make a new nation of free men, who ma5' 
 own their own souls and found a new nation in 
 faith." 
 
 Brave words! words of prophecy and of a sub- 
 lime trust. The finger of destiny was already 
 writing of the coming Western Reserve. 
 
 The Pilgrim Fathers sailed, firm in the faith 
 that they were fulfilling the will of God. Then 
 came that long, cold and terrible winter in an un- 
 
Foreword 
 
 known land, upon an inhospitable shore, surrounded 
 by savages who were an enemy to their race. Be- 
 fore the grass grew again, or the balm}' south 
 winds blew, more than one-half of their number 
 were either dead or dying; "but in those terrible 
 times the faith of the Pilgrim Fathers never failed 
 or faltered, and the star of destin}' hung in the 
 clouds over those eight or more rude houses by the 
 sea." 
 
 It will be well for the rising generation to 
 remember Elder Brewster's words of faith during 
 those da3'S of tribulation and trial, for the}'- con- 
 tain for us the true word of prophecy, the hand- 
 writing of God upon the walls of time; the way of 
 the coming Western Reserve was being prepared. 
 
 "Blessed will it be for us," said this old hero 
 of faith, "blessed for this land, for this vast con- 
 tinent! Na}', from generation to generation will the 
 blessing descend. Generations to come will look 
 back to this hour and these scenes of agonizing 
 trial, this day of small things and say: 'Here was 
 our beginning as a people. These were our 
 fathers. Through their trials we inherit our bless- 
 ings. Their faith is our faith; their hope our 
 hope; their God our God.' " 
 
 Slowly but surely God's chosen people pushed 
 back those children of nature towards the glowing 
 west, clothed with its everlasting garb of primeval 
 forest. First were the shores of the Great Salt 
 Sea depopulated, then the banks of those great 
 
Foreword 
 
 fresh water streams, the Hudson, the Mohawk, the 
 St. Lawrence, the Delaware, the Susquehanna. 
 Slowly and sadly they abandoned the hunting 
 grounds of their tribes, the council chambers of 
 their nations and the graves of their sires. Pressed 
 into this narrow space, they very soon came into 
 contact with the fierce lords of the farther west, 
 the unconquerable "home defenders," the terrible 
 warriors of the Cat tribe. The conflict was long 
 and bloody, a war for existence, a war of extermin- 
 ation, cruel, pitiless, hopeless. No quarter was 
 asked or received, and captured warriors went to 
 the stake singing songs of defiance and chanting 
 their deeds of forest valor. 
 
 Forced from the beloved shores of the Cat lake 
 the tribe slowly retreated down the Cuyahoga and 
 Rocky valleys, stubbornly contesting every foot of 
 ground and making their last stand in the valleys 
 of the Killbuck, the Chippewa, and the Mohican. 
 
 This Indian war ended sometime between 
 1 66 1 and 1700; no man can sa^' just when. 
 
 The way was being prepared for the "coming 
 man," and with the expulsion of the Eries came a 
 noted period in the annals of the aborigines of the 
 country. From this time dated all aboriginal his- 
 tory west of the AUeghanies; with it came the im- 
 migration of eastern tribes, Wyandots or Hurons, 
 Delawares, Shawnees, Miamis, Mingoes, Ottawas 
 and Chippewas. With their coming the Cuyahoga, 
 the Tuscarawas, and the Portage Path, became the 
 
Foreword 
 
 boundar)' between nations, and a great neutral 
 highway between the gulf on the south, and the 
 great lakes on the north. The country west of Por- 
 tage Path was owned b}' the western Indians while 
 that to the east was the countr}' of the great Six 
 Nations. 
 
 The Portage Path was the best, the shortest, 
 the driest, the best known between the great lakes 
 and the rivers running southwardly into the gulf. 
 Its importance in those earl}' days must not be 
 overlooked. For centuries it was the national 
 boundarj' and neutral highway for all Indian races. 
 Over it came red men carr3ang their birch-bark 
 canoes from the rivers southwardly to the Crook- 
 ed River" flowing to the north, long before Christ- 
 opher Columbus had even planted the Spanish flag 
 on the shores of the unknown world. Along this 
 path sped the Indian runner on his mission of 
 peace or war, during the dark ages preceding the 
 advent of the white man, and for some three hun- 
 dred years thereafter. It was not onl}' an Indian 
 trail, but it v/as the center and ke3'-note of all In- 
 dian communication in the entire northwest. 
 
 He who runs may read! and to him who delves 
 deep down into the thoughts of an everlasting God 
 there comes a glorious realization of the magnitude 
 of a plan for the regeneration of mankind that takes 
 in a period of time reaching as far back as the day 
 "when the stars sang together and the sea grew 
 quiet and still." 
 
An Appeal 
 
 To THE Honor and Pride of the People of 
 Northern Ohio, 
 
 In briefly reviewing the past, and appealing to 
 the public spirit of the people of Northern Ohio, I 
 have no personal axes to grind, but simply would 
 champion a worthy and imperative cause, because 
 up to this time no one else has seen fit to do so. 
 
 The red men of the Ohio valley were migrato- 
 r}' in their character and in their tastes. 
 
 The Indians of the Cuyahoga were here to- 
 day; to-morrow they perchance would be found 
 down the Tuscarawas; in a week, amongst the In- 
 dian towns of the Muskingum, or the rapids of 
 Maumee, the Miami of the lakes; and later, per- 
 haps, in the vicinity of Sandusky or Detroit. 
 
 The Cuyahoga and Portage Path villages fur- 
 nished secure fastnesses, far from the trails of 
 transitory and adventurous whites, who held to 
 the well-beaten trails of better known parts of the 
 Indian countr}'. 
 
 Here were their homes, their sacred hearth- 
 stones, their families, their corn-fields, and the 
 graves of their sires. 
 
 6 
 
An Appeal 
 
 From here down the "Great Centrrd Indian 
 Trail," passing the "falls of Hopocan," crossing 
 the upper Cu3-ahoga waters at "Standing Stone", 
 whose lone pine was a beacon b}^ day, on up the 
 valle}' of "Break-neck Creek," crossing the 
 "Summit" not far from Ravenna, thence on 
 through the present townships of Edinburg, 
 Palmyra and Milton to the "Salt Springs" of the 
 Mahoning, and thence, down that river either by 
 canoe or land; to "the forks of the trail", if by the 
 latter; or if b}' canoe, to "the forks of the 
 Beaver." From there thej' made their sudden 
 foray to isolated Penns3'lvania hamlets, or to 
 lonely, unguarded cabin homes on the extreme 
 border land. Then — the midnight attack, the 
 burning homes, the shrieks of unprotected 
 womanhood and that of helpless infanc3\ The 
 lust of blood glutted, and loaded with plunder, 
 they made their way back to their forest retreat in 
 two days, or perhaps, if pursued, in a day and 
 night of travel. 
 
 Within a radius of thirt}' miles were clustered 
 lOO fresh water lakes var^nng in size from the mere 
 pond to sheets of water stretching miles in extent, 
 and filled with fish of savory qualities. These 
 lakes were frequented b}^ wild aquatic fowl of 
 many varieties. These shores, these forests, 
 abounded with a greater variety of wild game and 
 in larger numbers than were to be found in any other 
 section of the Ohio valley. In the beginning of 
 
An Appeal 
 
 the i8th century this was the home of elks, and 
 even bison were found. The Indians of the far- 
 away Susquehanna had their hunting grounds here 
 which they called "the Diohoga", the Delaware 
 word for our small but famous river. Even as late 
 as 1838, five hundred deer were the result of one 
 day's circular hunt within twenty miles of Akron, 
 or of the Cleveland of to-da3^ Sounds like ro- 
 mance, does it not? And yet, until a few years 
 ago, the story could have been verified by living 
 witnesses; today, there are but few living to 
 whom it was related by lips now dead. 
 
 European maps of the 17th and i8th century, 
 before Lake Erie and the Ohio River were known 
 upon them, showed the "Cayahogo" and its 
 famous "carrying place" the Portage Path, thick- 
 ly peopled with Indian villages, while on the pre- 
 sent site of Akron clustered the Indian "Cayahogo 
 Town." 
 
 But beyond this, even back to the first know- 
 ledge which the Europeans had of America, and 
 their faint, crude idea of the Great Lakes, we find a 
 fair knowledge of the "portage of the Cuyahoga," 
 which at that time was regarded as a commercial 
 and strategic point of great value, that to the aver- 
 age citizen of to-day seems strangely exaggerated. 
 
 Thomas Jefferson and George Washington at 
 one time were deeply interested in its importance 
 and in the possibility of making a canal between 
 the north line of Portage Path and Summit Lake, 
 
An Appeal 
 
 thus forming of it a national highway for ships. 
 
 When a young man, George Washington and 
 his inseparable forest companion, Christopher Gist, 
 had penetrated the primeval forest to within ten 
 miles of Lake Erie; may even have reached its 
 shore, and ma^' possibly have visited Portage Path, 
 as his knowledge of it was accurate. 
 
 "Ohio's Magna Charta", the Ordinance of 
 1787, secures to the people of the United States 
 the right of highway on the Tuscarawas, Cuj^ahoga 
 and Portage Path, and says they shall be "FOR- 
 EVER FREE." 
 
 But going back of this — even to the first cry 
 of man — we find the Cuyahoga valley one vast 
 geological lake reaching to almost the northern 
 limits of Akron. Later than this, we find that the 
 waters of the Cuj'ahoga which had flowed into the 
 gulf, had through some convulsion of nature, near 
 the village oi that name, become dammed, and 
 then had cut a new channel, emptying itself into 
 the great lake of the north: not only this, but it 
 had cut a new channel through a high bluff and 
 entered Lake Erie a mile from its former mouth. 
 
 To the shame of the people of northern Ohio 
 be it said, that they have allowed their pre-historic 
 highway of Indian nations long since gathered to 
 their fathers, an ancient road-way, pregnant with 
 the care of an early government, of two early presi- 
 dents of the United States, who gave force and 
 character to the liberty loving of every nation, to 
 
An Appeal 
 
 become obscured: nay, almost lost, through the 
 avarice of man and the earthy accumulations of 
 over a centur^^'s neglect. 
 
 To their shame be it said that they have al- 
 lowed the corner stones set by Moses Cleveland 
 marking the boundary line of the great nation of 
 the United States to become lost — buried over four 
 feet deep by one hundred and fifteen 3'ears accum- 
 alation of debris. 
 
 Men of the Nation and the State! Citizens of 
 northern Ohio and of Summit County! residents 
 of the metropolis of Ohio, and of Akron! you owe 
 it to the people of Ohio, and to the whole nation, 
 to see that these points be rescued from the un- 
 deserved oblivion under which they unjustly lie. 
 
 The monumental stones set by Cleveland, and 
 Pease, and Warren, and Holle^', have become 
 covered and hidden through a nation's neglect, a 
 slate's indifference and the Rip Van Winkleism of 
 the residents of this section, until they can hardly 
 be found by digging. 
 
 Will this criminal neglect continue? Or, will 
 the public spirited citizens of northern Ohio, of ihe 
 old Western Reserve, of Cleveland, the metropolis 
 of the great State of Ohio, of Akron, "the Tip 
 Top City" — "the City of Opportunity,'' see that 
 these historical points of exceptional national in- 
 terest, be rescued from the unjust oblivion under 
 which they have lain during a centur3^'s growth 
 and wealth. 
 
 10 
 
An Appeal 
 
 If the spirit of local interest and of national 
 pride 3'et beats in your veins as it did when the 
 British were invading your shores in 1812, or, 
 when national honor and the life of the Republic 
 were assailed in "61", then indeed, you will not 
 rest until these great historical and economic 
 points in a great Nation's past are again restored, 
 and to which we can point with just pride as the 
 relics of a time that tried men's souls. 
 
 Other states, other counties, other towns, 
 have been for years busil}^ engaged in erecting 
 monuments to commemorate points of historical, 
 state and national interest. Wh}'^ should the 
 busiest cit}- in Ohio be behind in this work? 
 
 The Portage Path can beat this time re-sur- 
 vej'ed and life-size monuments of native life set at 
 the corners and other important places which, 
 at a ver\' small cost, will be a jo}^ and pride to our 
 citizens. 
 
 We owe it to ourselves, our children, to pos- 
 terity, to cit}' pride, count_y renown, state glory 
 and national approbation to see that this is done 
 — and done soon. 
 
 II 
 
Captain Pipe of Portage Path 
 
 "Here the mighty Hopocan, 
 
 Held his long unquestioned sway, 
 
 From the green hills far away, 
 
 To the Great Lake's sounding shore; 
 
 Chief of chiefs, his regal word 
 
 All the river Sachems heard; 
 
 At his call the \var-dance stirred. 
 
 Or was still once more." 
 "There were spoils of chase and war; 
 Jaws of wolf and black bear's paw. 
 Panther's skin and eagle's claw, 
 Lay beside his axe and bow; 
 And adown the roof-pole hung, 
 Loosely on a snake-skin strung. 
 In the smoke his scalp-locks swung 
 
 Grimh'^ to and fro.'' 
 "Nightly down the river going, 
 Swifter was the hunter's rowing. 
 When he saw that lodge-fire glowing 
 O'er the waters still and red; 
 And the squaw's dark eye burned brighter. 
 And she drew her blanket tighter, 
 As with swifter steps and lighter 
 From that door she fled." 
 
 — Whittier 
 
 12 
 
( Mlitain Pipe Wjiriiinii 'lie S<-(>ut to Leave the 
 K<-*l Mill's T.mikI 
 
Hopocan — Captain Pipe the King of 
 Portage Path 
 
 Hopocan, Hobacon, Copacon, Wobocan, as it 
 has been variously spelled, or as he was better 
 known, Captain Pipe, was a man of m3'stery. 
 There is no direct evidence that he was ever born, 
 and none that he ever died. 
 
 This strange, mysterious, successful and vin- 
 dictive historical figure appeared upon the stage 
 and then — disappeared. As near as can be learned 
 he was born somewhere on the Susquehanna, when 
 the eighteenth century was quite young. No 
 man knows when, or where. He belonged to the 
 Wolf clan of the Lcnni — Lenape or the Delazoarc. 
 His earl}^ life as well as his latter end is buried 
 in obscurit}\ We first hear of him in 1759, then 
 a noted chief, and a man of uncertain age. 
 What had been his environments? We have no 
 knowledge. When he removed to the Ohio coun- 
 try is also not certain. The most that is known 
 is, that in 1764, he was a well known and noted 
 chieftain on the Cuyahoga, Tuscarawas and the 
 Muskingum, as well as in the Delaware villages of 
 Pennsylvania. It was upon the promise of his re- 
 
 13 
 
Captain Pipe 
 
 lease that the prisoners in the Indian countrj^ were 
 so quickly brought to Bouquet; Capt, Pipe, Capt. 
 John, and one other, being held by him as hostages 
 at Fort Pitt. 
 
 His village was located at the end of Portage 
 Path on the Tuscarawas river, between two 
 beautiful fresh water lakes. Geographically, he 
 was located in Coventr}^ township, Summit 
 county. On account of his always signing his 
 name as "King of New Portage," the township 
 has alwaj's been known as "the State of Coven- 
 tr}'." The location of his village was at an im- 
 portant point in the early history of the countr}'. 
 Both Washington and Jefferson regarded it as 
 a place of great commercial value, and in the ordi- 
 nance of 1787 it was rated as "a carrying place" 
 and declared to be a national highway and for- 
 ever free. It was the real center of the vast laby- 
 rinth of that network of Indian paths traversing 
 the western territory in every direction. 
 
 The next we hear from him is some thirty' 
 miles below his village, on the Tuscarawas, or as 
 it was then called, the Little Muskingum. The 
 pioneer missionary. Rev. Charles Frederick Post, 
 had come into this great unknown for the pur- 
 pose of making known to them the God of his 
 fathers. This was in 1761. Having obtained the 
 permission of King Beaver, the Delaware chief, 
 he returned the following year with a young en- 
 thusiast, John Heckewelder by name, then but 
 
 14 
 
Captain Pipe 
 
 nineteen 5'ears of age. Having located his cabin, 
 he proceeded with its erection. Fearing that he 
 was about to erect a fort, the Indians ordered him 
 to desist. A council was held. Post convinced 
 them of his peaceful intentions. Hopocan, a Del- 
 aware chief, was appointed to pace off a square of 
 hft\^ paces each way. This space was thought to 
 be sufficient for the Mission and its attending corn 
 fields. Captain Pipe, the suspicious; Pipe, the 
 craft_v, Pipe the wronged, was jealous of the white 
 men. He was afraid of missionaries, doubtful of 
 new religions, ignorant of disinterested benevo- 
 lence, and knew no virtues but those he had im- 
 bibed from his progenitors. The court of final 
 arbitration was to him the tomahawk and scalping 
 knife. The rewards for a good life well lived, was 
 the favor of the Great Spirit in the happy hunt- 
 ing grounds of the spirit land. You ma\^ then be 
 sure that his steps were not overly long. 
 
 Col. May speaks of seeing Capt Pipe at Fort 
 Harmar, in 1788, and says, "Here I was intro- 
 duced to Old Pipes, chief of the Delaware Nation, 
 and his suite, dressed and acting like the offspring 
 of Satan." Wm. M. Barlington says "He was 
 ambitious, bold, and noted for schemes and strat- 
 egy; Captain Pipe was a prominent chief of the 
 Wolf tribe, the most warlike of the Delawares?" 
 The Colonial Records of Pennsylvania state that 
 he was among the warriors at the conference held 
 at Fort Pittt, in July 1759, between George Cro- 
 
 15 
 
Captain Pipe 
 
 gan, who was Sir Wm. Johnson's deputy Indian 
 agent, and the Indians of the Six Nations, Shaw- 
 nees and Delawares. 
 
 While Colonel Bouquet was at Fort Pitt in 
 1764, preparatory to his famous expedition to the 
 heart of the Ohio country, six Indians appeared 
 on a September morning on the bank of the river 
 across from Fort Pitt. Bouquet finally prevailed 
 upon the Indians to visit the fort, when he made 
 them prisoners. Three were soon released and 
 sent to the Indian tribes with his messages; the 
 other three, among whom was Captain Pipe, were 
 retained as hostages until after the return of Col- 
 onel Bouquet's army from the Muskingum coun- 
 try, when they were set free. Captain Pipe was a 
 prisoner in Fort Pitt for nearly three months, and 
 it was here where he learned to talk English. 
 
 In the following year, 1765, Captain Pipe was 
 at Fort Pitt as one of the chief warriors of the 
 Delawares, attending the "great talk" at that 
 place. Nearly six hundred chiefs and warriors 
 with their squaws and papooses were present. He 
 again was present at the great conference held at 
 Fort Pitt in April, 1768, between George Croghan 
 and over one thousand chiefs and warriors of the 
 Six Nations, and other scattering tribes. In 1771, 
 as the leading chief of the Delawares, he sent a 
 speech to Governor John Penn, of Pennsylvania, 
 which is printed in the Archives of that State. 
 
 This same Governor, John Penn, a son of Wm. 
 
 16 
 
Captain Pipe 
 
 Penn, offered by proclamation, a premium for In- 
 dian captives and scalps, "For the capture of 
 any male above ten years of age, one hundred 
 and fifty-dollars; or for his scalp, being killed, one 
 hundred and thirty-four dollars; and for every fe- 
 male captive, one hundred and thirty dollars, or 
 for the scalp of such female killed, fifty dollars." 
 
 The Penns, offering a bounty for women's 
 scalps! humane isn't it? 
 
 In May, 1774, in company with White E5'es, 
 Killbuck, Guyasuta and other prominent Delaware 
 chiefs, Capt. Pipe met George Croghan, who came 
 with Dr. John Connelly, Lord Dunmore's tool, in 
 company with the leading citizens at Fort Pitt, in 
 regard to the dastardly murder of Logan's rela- 
 tives by Cresap and Greathouse. Croghan was 
 the most active of all early treaty makers. On 
 Aug 7, 1757, he met Freedyuscung, king of the 
 Delaware Nation, at Easton, Pa. This aged Indi- 
 an king was the arbitrator of ten different tribes, 
 and at its close he said to George Crogham, "We 
 have now finished; the treaty is over, peace is con- 
 firmed, and I told you I thought of going to Phil- 
 adelphia; but upon considering the matter with 
 more attention I think it will be more for the pub- 
 lic service to proceed immediately to Diohoga. 
 Man}' nations will be uneasy to know what has 
 been done at this council fire, and will take meas- 
 ures accordingl}'. I shall make the best of my 
 way to Diohoga, and proclaim there to nations 
 
 17 '^ 
 
Captain Pipe 
 
 still more distant the confirmation of the peace 
 with our brethren the English! This will take up 
 three or four months." Indian tribes pronounced 
 Cuyahoga differently. The Delaware name for 
 the River was Diohoga. Fernow, in his second 
 m.ap published in '1754., calls it Diohoga. 
 
 George Croghan in his Journal, bearing date 
 July 19, C727, says: "I understand it is the Lake 
 Indians that are annoying the frontiers at present, 
 with perhaps one or two Delawares with each par- 
 t}'." Sir Wm. Johnson, British Indian agent for 
 North America, at this time, informed the British 
 Lords of Trade, that there were on the Scioto 
 River and its branches, three hundred Shawnees 
 warriors; on the Muskingum, Tuscarawas and 
 thence to Lake Erie, six hundred Delaware braves; 
 and near Lake Erie, two hundred Wj'andots. 
 This estimate of Johnson's according to all other 
 authorities, fell twenty-two hundred short. This 
 proves two things. First, that previous to 1757, 
 the Delawares were already a power upon the Re- 
 serve. Secondly that the depredations of the sav- 
 ages upon the Pennsj'lvania borders came largeh' 
 from the Indians of northern Ohio. 
 
 It has been said that Captain Pipe was at 
 "Braddock's field" in 1755. In 1759, as a repre- 
 sentative of the Delaware Nation, he held a 
 "peace talk" with George Croghan. In 1764, Bou- 
 quet used the fact that his release depended upon 
 the chiefs delivering up their captives. In the 
 
Captain Pipe 
 
 years 1765, and 1768, he was again at Fort Pitt in 
 the interest of the Delawares. In 1771 he deliver- 
 ed a speech to the Governor of Pennsj'lvania. In 
 1774 he again was at Fort Pitt, trying to wrest sat- 
 isfaction from the whites for the coldblooded mur- 
 der of Logan's relatives. So far, his peace efforts 
 had been in vain; from now on, his history was to 
 be written in blood. The savagery of his nature 
 was to have full expression. Deeds of daring and 
 bloody reprisals were to make his name dreaded, but 
 famous, all over the north west. The ambush, the 
 scalping knife, the midnight foray, the sudden 
 march, the quick retreat, the battle by day, the 
 torture stake, were to write his name in letters 
 of scarlet. Swift, relentless, tireless, he was ever 
 in the wake of death, and agon)-, and women's 
 moans. 
 
 In 1774, he fought against Lewis at Point 
 Pleasant. In 1778, he battled against the forces 
 of Gen'l Mcintosh; in the midst of one of the cold- 
 est winters, for long, weary weeks he invested Fort 
 Laurens, until he accomplished the fall of that post 
 — the first stockaded and parapeted fort within the 
 limits of Ohio. In 1779, Col. Bowman's expedi- 
 tion felt his deathly grip. In 1781 he slaughtered 
 Col. Lochry's command, and hung upon the flanks 
 of Col. Broadhead's disgraceful expedition. In 
 1781 his scouts hung upon Col. Crawford's force 
 from the time it left the Mingo bottoms until it 
 reached the Sandusky plains. An unseen, but a 
 
 19 
 
Captain Pipe 
 
 watchful, tireless, vigilant, active foe; and when 
 the time came to strike, Pipe was transformed into 
 a murderous demon, until he was glutted with mas- 
 sacre, and woe and death. He it was who captured 
 the commander of an unfortunate expedition and 
 retreated with his prisoners until he reached one of 
 his villages upon the Tymochtee. Here Pipe 
 painted Col. Crawford the death color with his own 
 hands, while the victim appealed to him in vain. 
 Had Pipe been mercenar}', he could have had riches 
 to forego his revenge, but all the gold in India 
 could not have purchased Crawford's life. Pipe's 
 word had passed that he must die at the torture 
 stake. The scene of that long, agonizing, death 
 trial is a matter of national historj^; we do not pro- 
 pose to repeat it here — it's something to be omit- 
 ted, to be glossed over, and forgotten with the 
 causes that made it possible, and seemingly neces- 
 sar3', to those wild men of the forest. Later this 
 3'ear, 1782, in August, there was a grand council 
 at "Old Chillicothe Towns," on or near the Great 
 Miami, in which the Wyandots, Delawares, Otta- 
 was, Mingoes, Pottawatomies, Shawnees, and Mi- 
 amis participated. George and Simon Girty, El- 
 liott and McKee were present and addressed the 
 council. Two armies were raised. One of six 
 hundred to march into Kentucky and lay waste the 
 settlements of the "long knives;" the other, three 
 hundred and fift_v strong was to harass the border 
 settlements of Pennsylvania and \'irginia. Capt. 
 
 20 
 
Captain Pipe 
 
 Armstrong, Thos. Lyons, Bill Montour, Baptiste 
 Jerome and Thomas Jelloway were Pipe's lieuten- 
 ants. The attack upon Br^'ant's Station, the siege 
 of Wheeling, the investment of Fort Rice, the 
 burning homes, the massacred families, are all 
 matters of history and need not be recalled. Soon 
 after this, Gen'l Geo. Rogers Clark was afield with 
 a thousand picked borderers from Kentucky and 
 Virginia. The Indian towns on the Miami River 
 were ravaged and burned, and the Shawnees driven 
 far into the interior. 
 
 Man}' of the Christian Moravian Indians were 
 of Capt. Pipe's tribe. He had no use for an Indi- 
 an who would pray but not fight, hence his enmi- 
 ty towards them up to the year 1782. It was 
 Capt. Pipe and his braves that escorted Captain 
 Matthew Elliott, the British emissary, who entered 
 the Tuscarawas Valley and made prisoners of the 
 Moravians on Sept. 11, 1781, escorting them to 
 "Captives Town," on the Sandusky river, about 
 ten miles from Upper Sandusky. After the mas- 
 sacre of the Moravians, March 8, 1782, by Col. 
 Williamson, the sympathies of Capt. Pipe were 
 turned towards the persecuted Moravians, and he 
 became their avenger. The sequel of this was the 
 torture of Col. Crawford at the stake. The mas- 
 sacre of the Moravians was the cause, the torture 
 of Crawford, the result, making a deep, foul blot 
 on the otherwise fair history of Ohio, a blot that 
 centuries of good deeds will not wipe out. 
 
 21 
 
Captain Pipe 
 
 Although he was an inveterate enemy of the 
 whites, yet he was a chronic treat}^ maker, and 
 when the first treaty was made establishing bound- 
 aries in Ohio, Pipe was on hand, and although the 
 treaty robbed him of his own village, he signed it as 
 "Capt. Pipe, King of New Portage." This treaty 
 was concluded at Fort Mcintosh, in January 1785. 
 Colonels Logan, in 1786, Edwards in 1787, and 
 Todd in 1788, made warlike expeditions into the 
 Ohio country, but we find no evidence of the old 
 chief taking part against any of these; indeed for 
 the next three 3'ears we lose sight of him altogether 
 with the exception that he attended and signed the 
 treat}' at Fort Finney in 1786. In 1787, he joined 
 the confederate tribes in favor of the United States. 
 In 1788, we find him at Marietta, welcoming^the 
 first permanent settlers to the Ohio country, as 
 the "Mayflower" swung boldly against the bank. 
 At this time he la^' encamped here, with sevent}' of 
 his braves. Gen'l. Harmar writing from Fort Har- 
 mar. Mar. 8, 1788, says, "Yesterday Old Pipe 
 with seven of his young men arrived at the garri- 
 son and are now with me. Their object is to dis- 
 pose of their skins to the contractor. He is a man- 
 ly old fellow, and much more of a gentleman than 
 the generality of these frontier people." 
 
 The next year the gathering war clouds hung 
 darkly over the border settlements; the burnings, 
 the robbings, the massacres, were fleeting episodes 
 in the terrible drama then being played. Such a 
 
 22 
 
Captain Pipe 
 
 sound of woe went up from all the frontier settle- 
 ments that Gen'l Harmar made a vigorous but un- 
 fortunate campaign against the Indians. This did 
 not subdue the savages, but seemed only to increase 
 their audacity and ferociousness. Capt. Pipe was 
 here, there and ever3^where. The blood had no 
 time to drj' on their tomahawks or scalping knives. 
 It was a harvest of death and vengeance, and his 
 young men grew fat and daring. The bloody 
 morning of Nov. 4th, 1791, opened dark and 
 gloomy, and a half an hour before the time of sun- 
 rise, the ill fated forces of St. Clair gave way be- 
 fore the Indian attack: from that time to night fall, 
 the tomahawks and scalping knives of Capt. Pipe 
 and his braves fell unceasingl^^ Pipe afterward 
 declared that he had "tomahawked whites until 
 his arm ached." From this time on, the Indian 
 warfare n-ever stopped until the savage power was 
 broken by "Mad Anthony Wayne." All through 
 the 3"ears of 1792-3-4, this carnival of butchery 
 and bloodshed continued; the old chief was fore- 
 most in all the bloody deeds, he harangued waver- 
 ing chiefs, he sent his runners to every distant 
 village, he led his braves in person in every 
 desperate venture. Wayne's army moved Oct 7, 
 1793, building forts and garrisoning them as they 
 went, and on August 20, 1794, the battle of Fallen 
 Timbers was fought and won, and the Indian power 
 broken, until Tecumseh could rally and bind the 
 scattered fragments together, 3'ears later, in a 
 
 23 
 
Captain Pipe 
 
 desperate attempt to recover the ground their 
 fathers had lost. After the treaty of Greenville 
 in 1795, when Capt Pipe again signed his name as 
 "Hopocan, King of New Portage." Some 3'ears 
 later, Thomas Lj'ons, one of Pipe's lieutenants 
 was interviewed as to his opinion of Wayne. 
 
 "Him be great chief." said the Indian. "He 
 be one devil to fight. Me hear his dinner horn — 
 way over there go toot, toot; then way over here 
 it go toot, toot — then way over other side, go toot, 
 toot, then his soldiers run forward — shoot, shoot; 
 then run among logs and brush. Indians have 
 got to get out and run. Then come Long Knives 
 and shoot, shoot. Indians run, no stop. Old 
 Tom see too much fight to be trap — he run into 
 woods — he run like devil — he keep run till he clear 
 out of danger. Wayne great fight — brave white 
 chief. He be one devil." After the treaty of 
 Greenville the old chief became a changed man, he 
 left the war path, he buried the hatchet forever. 
 Old age ma}' have had something to do with this 
 but, be this as it ma^', he from that time on became 
 friendly to the whites. In 1785 they had ceded 
 to the United States the ground on which his war- 
 village stood, by the treaties of 1785 and 1786 
 and in 1795, he confirmed this; so after the treaty 
 he moved across the line and at sometime from 
 1795-97, probably in the latter part of 1795 or the 
 earlier part of 1796, he with Jerome and others of 
 his tribe, built a village on the site of the old 
 
 24 
 
Captain Pipe 
 
 Mohican Johnstown, on the south side of the 
 Jerome Fork of the Mohican, about three-quarters 
 of a mile from the present site of Jeromeville, 
 Ashland county. Pipe built a wigwam on the 
 river about a quarter of a mile below the village. 
 From this time on, to the close of his career, ac- 
 counts of him are very conflicting. In 1808, 
 while surve3'ing Jackson township, Maxfield 
 Ludlow discovered a blazed road which was said 
 to run to the mouth of the Kayhoga (Cuyahoga). 
 In the same 3'ear Joseph Larwill, while surve3'ing 
 the sectional divisions of the second township be- 
 low the Reserve line, made the acquaintance of the 
 old chief. Hon. A. H. B3'ers says, "Captain 
 Pipe and several of his warriors came upon the 
 surve3'ing part3' and ordered them to desist, sa\'- 
 ing: You go tick — tuck, tick — tuck, all da\'. Me 
 cut 3'our legs off, then how you go tick — tuck, 
 tick — tuck? In the meantime his warriors seized 
 and ran awa3' with the chain, and thus put a stop, 
 for a while, to the work." 
 
 Mr. Copus, who was afterwards massacred by 
 the Indians, said, that in the fall of 1809, he at- 
 tended an Indian feast given by the savages of the 
 Greentown village. They were addressed by old 
 Captain Pipe. Mr. Copus further states that the 
 chief was old, tall and graceful. His eyes had 
 the fire of 3'outh, and blazed with emotion while he 
 was speaking. The whole audience seemed deeply 
 moved b3' the oration. The savages frequently 
 
 25 
 
Captain Pipe 
 
 sobbed and seemed deeply affected. Alexander 
 Coulter states that he also attended a feast in the 
 Indian town of Greentown in 1811, at which Old 
 Captain Pipe was present. So far as we are able 
 to learn, this was the last public appearance of the 
 old chieftain. Mr. Coulter says, "This was the 
 last we hear of him at any public gathering in this 
 region; and we are inclined to think this feast fore- 
 shadowed the calamitous war of 181 2, which com- 
 menced a few months after the feast." James Fin- 
 le}^ says he saw Pipe in his village a number of 
 times but he has no recollection of his having wife 
 or children. He further states that he left early 
 in the summer of 1812. An old lady in Richland 
 count}', states that she saw and talked with Pipe 
 during the war and that he then was over a hun- 
 dred j-ears old. All authorities agree upon his 
 disappearance. One writer says that just before 
 the beginning of hostilities in 1812, he in compan}- 
 with some of his warriors quietl}' slipped awaj'. 
 Another says he made his way to Canada. Mere 
 surmises, all of them. The fact remains that in 
 18 12 he wandered away. The probabilities are that 
 either he was met in some woodland nook, b}' 
 some of the various bands of Indian hunters and 
 killed, or as tradition saith, died of remorse. He 
 was an old, a very old man, yet his influence was 
 worth much to the British. He was repeatedly ap- 
 proached by their agents. To their last, he drew 
 himself up proudly, saying "When I signed the 
 
 26 
 
Captain Pipe 
 
 treat}' at Greenville, it was understood that I was 
 not again to take up the hatchet while the trees 
 grow and the waters run." Daniel Carter said, 
 that when he was about eleven 3'ears old his father 
 sent him to mill, earh' in the spring of 1812. Pipe 
 and his Delawares had not as j'et left Mohican 
 Johnstown. Upon his return in the evening, he 
 reached the Indian village a little after dark. 
 The savages were holding a council at the 
 council house. He stopped to witness it. He 
 says that it was at this "pow-wow" that the 
 "red stick," of Tecumseh was rejected by old 
 Capt. Pipe. In 1788, both Colonel May and Gen- 
 eral Harmar spoke of the chieftain as an old man. 
 This was twenty-four years before this date; if 
 then he was an old man, what was he with twent}'- 
 four winters added to his age? Who then was 
 the Captain Pipe of the war of 1812? Dr. Geo. 
 W. Hill, the historian of Marion, Wyandot, Allen 
 Richland and Ashland Counties, calls him Capt. 
 Pipe Jr. and regards him as a son of Old Captain 
 Pipe. Ebenezer Rice says that he was well ac- 
 quainted with the chiefs, Armstrong's sons ' and 
 young Pipe, a son of old Capt. Pipe." In a letter 
 addressed to Dr. Geo. W. Hill in 1873, Governor 
 Wm. Walker, of Kansas, says "At the treaty of 
 Maumee, held in the summer of 1817, a reservation 
 of a township to include 'Pipestown' was made 
 to these people. When the colonization of Indians 
 in the west, under General Jackson's administra- 
 
 27 
 
Captain Pipe 
 
 tion, went into operation, thej' with other Ohio 
 tribes, ceded their domain and went west under 
 the leadership of Captain Pipe, their surviving 
 chief. The elder Captain Pipe could not have died 
 as early as 1794, for he certainly was at the treat}^ 
 of Greenville, when the pacification took place in 
 the following year, and Howe, in his pictorial his- 
 tor}', says: "The Delaware Indians had a settle- 
 ment at or near Jeromeville, which thev left at the 
 beginning of the war. Their chief was Old Captain 
 Pipe. When young he was a great warrior, and 
 the implacable foe of the whites. He was in St. 
 Clair's defeat, where according to his own account 
 he distinguished himself, 'and slaughtered white 
 men until his arm was weary with the work.' I 
 can gather no reliable information about him from 
 the present generation of Wyandots. The late 
 Capt. Pipe was undoubtedly the son of the former, 
 and the only son. He died in this country in 1839 
 or 1840, leaving no children. I do not think he 
 was ever married. He was a man of fine natural 
 abilities, good natured and genial in disposition, 
 and popular with his people." 
 
 This, then was the Capt. Pipe of the war of 
 1812, the British emissarj', a leader of renegade 
 braves from other tribes. At a treaty in 1814-17, 
 territory' six miles south of Upper Sandusky was 
 set apart as a reservation for the savages from 
 the Indian Villages of Jerometown and Greentown, 
 in Ashland County. The new village built there 
 
 28 
 
Captain Pipe 
 
 was called "Pipetown" in honor of Capt. Pipe, Jr. 
 who was made half-king and in conjunction with 
 one of Armstrong's sons, presided as chief over 
 the village. This treat}' was signed in presence of 
 Wm. Walker, then an interpreter to the Wyandots, 
 later, Governor of Kansas. It was signed by Pipe 
 Jr, as was the treaty of 1823. Early in the sum- 
 mer of 1812, Capt Douglas arrived at Jeromeville, 
 and Greentown, with a company of militia, to re- 
 move the Indians to either Urbana, or Piqua; 
 authorities differ. Armstrong at that time had 
 eight}' braves. 
 
 In 1778 a conference was held between 
 Andrew and Thomas Lewis, United States Com- 
 missioners, and the Delaware chiefs, Capt. Pipe, 
 White Eyes, Killbuck and others. Previous to 
 this Governor Hamilton, of Detroit, had been try- 
 ing to array all the Ohio tribes against the strug- 
 gling colonists in their fight for liberty. The Del- 
 awares on the Cuyahoga and Tuscarawas, were of 
 two clans, the turtle and the wolf. The turtle 
 clan favored peace, although years before the Six 
 Nations had dubbed them as "old women". The 
 wolf clan being the most warlike resented the 
 name and declared for war. It was but a short 
 time after this conference at Fort Pitt, before the 
 long threatened rupture between Capt Pipe and 
 White Eyes occurred. This rupture was during 
 the revolutionary war and not at the beginning of 
 the war of 1812 as some historians are so fond of 
 
 29 
 
Captain Pipe 
 
 stating. Chiefs White Eyes and Netawtwees, were 
 firm for peace, while Pipe, Half King and Wingen- 
 und declared for war. Early in 1782 Capt Pipe and 
 Half King went from tribe to tribe, from village to 
 village, exhorting, coaxing, threatening until the 
 secret fastnesses in and around the Sandusky 
 Plains, soon teemed with three thousand painted, 
 bedecked red devils waiting for their expected 
 prey. The old chief had not only the power of 
 bringing out his own young men, but the Wyan- 
 dots, Shawnees, Ottowas, Miamis, Mingoes and 
 Mohegans answered to his rallying war cry. 
 
 Had Pipe been born under different conditions, 
 from a tribe that was homogeneous, instead of one 
 that for a century had been content to pay tribute 
 toothers and bear the name, "women," in patience; 
 which was divided into four distinct and separate 
 clans, owning their own chiefs, and not subservient 
 to others: had he like Pontiac been born of a 
 tribe who had no great chiefs, or like Tecumseh, of 
 a tribe that thought and acted as one, to whom war 
 was not only a business, but a pastime, he would 
 have risen to a greater height than either of these. 
 His name would have been blazoned high on the 
 escutcheon of fame, and he would have stood head 
 and shoulders above any other aboriginal war chief 
 of North America. He had all the qualities of an 
 Indian statesman and warrior. He was temperate 
 and ambitious, intelligent and cunning, eloquent 
 and persuasive, frank but discreet, skilful and dar- 
 
 30 
 
Captain Pipe 
 
 ing, active and cautious, relentless and persistent, 
 wary and vindictive, suspicious but winning. His 
 form was the embodiment of elasticiti\- and en- 
 durance, his eloquence would melt the stoutest 
 warrior to tears, or send him a whooping maniac 
 slashing his tomahawk into the painted war-post of 
 his village. 
 
 W. A. Adams in his reminiscences, relates an 
 anecdote that was characteristic of the man. He 
 and his squaw took supper on one occasion with 
 Mr. Adams' father. "Mr. Adams said — 
 
 "Captain Pipe, I notice that you do not drink 
 whisk}' like other Indians." 
 
 "You are mistaken," said Pipe, "l love whis- 
 ky, but refuse to drink because it sets a bad ex- 
 ample. Among gentlemen I drink." 
 
 Mr. Adams handed the Captain a bottle and a 
 glass, and he drank the health of all, remarking: 
 
 "We Indians have a saying which is good. It 
 is, "Captain Whisk}' is a brave warrior; you fight 
 him long enough and he is sure to get your scalp." 
 
 Capt. Pipe signed his treaties as King of New 
 Portage. Why New? the writer has never been 
 able to ascertain. Had there been a change in the 
 Portage? was this really a new one? Certain earlv 
 European maps give the portage at one mile; nota- 
 ble among these are Jeffries', Bowen and Gibson's. 
 We only know that sometime between 1700 and 
 1725, the Cuyahoga cut a new channel to the lake 
 through high hills. 
 
 31 
 
Portage Path 
 
 From the Early European Map-Makers 
 Point of View 
 
 It is an undoubted fact that in the earliest of 
 the very early times, the portage between the waters 
 running south and north was much shorter than it 
 has been during the last one hundred and fifty 
 years. 
 
 Golden's map of uncertain date, showing the 
 various portages, gives Michigan Lake, Lake of 
 the Hurons, Lake Erie or Okswego, and Cataraqui 
 or Ontario. The region north of Lake Erie is 
 given as "The country conquered by the Five 
 Nations." 
 
 This map shows a "portage," or "carrying 
 place" from a river running in to the west end of 
 Lake Erie, unnamed, to the Ouabache river," 
 also a "carrying place" from the Cuyahoga to the 
 Ohio river, of which the Allegheny is not a 
 branch, but a direct continuation. 
 
 The Jeffries map, improved by L Gibson, 
 gives the portage between the Cuyahoga and the 
 Muskingum at one mile. 
 
 Andrew's New Map of the American Colonies, 
 
 32 
 
Portage Path 
 
 London, 1783, gives the Sandusk3' portage as nine 
 miles, and the Portage Path as one mile. 
 
 The map from the Ameriqtte Septeyitrionale, 
 far Mitchel, Paris, 1777, calls the Cuyahoga, 
 "the Canahogue," as well as the country south 
 of it, and says, virtually, that the country for 
 35 miles south of Lake Erie was devoted to the 
 war of the "Five Nations" and afterwards became 
 their hunting grounds. 
 
 Bowen and Gibson's map of North America, 
 London, 1763, also gives the valley of the 
 Cuj'ahoga as the hunting grounds of the "Six 
 Nations." 
 
 Hutchinson's map, 1764, also gives the length 
 of the "Portage Path" as one mile. 
 
 As Long Lake and Summit Lake were origi- 
 nally one lake, reaching nearly to the center of 
 Akron, it is possible that at one time, previous to 
 the knowledge of the whites, the Portage Path 
 was really but one mile in length. 
 
 33 
 
What the Original Surv^eyors of 1796 Had 
 
 to Say of the Portage Path and Its 
 
 Vicinity 
 
 To Richard M. Stoddard: 
 
 You will proceed up the river to our head- 
 quarters, though I am at a loss at present where it 
 will be fixed, but you may take the line between 
 the loth and nth ranges, (the line between Coven- 
 try and Springfield) and I will give j^ou notice on 
 that, at the nearest corner. (Corner Portage and 
 Tallmadge.) We shall go as far as possible with 
 our boats. If I have an opportunity I will send a 
 line here, after we have fixed our headquarters. 
 If you should not arrive here (Cleveland) so as to 
 be there in about thirty da3's from this date, I 
 think you had better not go up the river, unless 
 you receive another line from your humble servant. 
 
 Seth Pease 
 
 Saturday June lo — Shepard and Warren's 
 parties took their departure about 10:30 a. m. 
 Spafford's and ni}' party moved up the river about 
 4. p. m. Got near Warren's line, and camped on 
 the west bank. Left a frj'ing pan. 
 
 Mr. Joe Tinker — I wish you to return and 
 
 34 
 
Original Surveyors 
 
 bring another boat load of stores as soon as possi- 
 ble. You will take four hands, and have such 
 men return as are best pleased with the business 
 of boating. I wish }'ou a prosperous voyage. 
 
 Seth Pease 
 
 Mr. David Beard, Sir — The survej'ors have 
 this day taken to the bush. We intend to build a 
 store house up the river. I wish you and those 
 men who come with the boat, and are not to return 
 with Mr. Tinker, to report to the headquarters and 
 take charge of the stores . * * 3'ou will take 
 a boat up the river, with three barrels of flour and 
 two of pork, some chests etc., which Mr. Hart will 
 show you. Seth Pease 
 
 Sunday', June ii — Ran a little be^'ond my line 
 and camped for the night on the east bank. Sat- 
 urday, June 17, Mr. Beard took charge of one 
 boat, and myself the other, and proceeded up the 
 river about a mile above where the stream from the 
 south (Little Cuyahoga) comes into the head of 
 boat navigation. 
 
 Sunday, i8th — After landing our stores we 
 took one boat and all hands went down to Morley's 
 (on the line between Boston and Northfield) in just 
 three hours. 
 
 Monday, July 17th — Started from upper- 
 headquarters (near Akron) at i p. m. to continue 
 the second parallel, and meet Mr. Pease from the 
 south (Pease was coming on the south line of the 
 Reserve, the 41st meridian, to the Tuscarawas) 
 
 35 
 
Original Surveyors 
 
 Began at a post I set on the loth meridian (now 
 Cuyahoga Falls) on the 30th of June. Ran west 
 between towns 2 and 3, Range 11, (line between 
 Portage and Northampton.) 
 
 Jul}'^ 18, — River fog prevented an observation 
 of the polar star. Struck the right bank of the 
 Cuyahoga river at three miles, 45 links 13 chains 
 and 98 links from the Portage Tree, in which I 
 traversed in three courses the last crossing the 
 xiver. I then traversed the Portage Path to course 
 number 23, and encamped on a run on course 
 number 7; sent Barker back after crossing the 
 river. 
 
 July 19 and 20 — Continued the traverse to 
 Tuscarawas landing (south end of Portage Path) 
 at courss 74. At number 72 is a large white oak, 
 marked with many hieroglyphics. (Near the present 
 center of Coventry, in fact in Mr. Marsh's door 
 yard. The trail runs through one corner of his 
 residence.) In this vicinity are man}' Indian 
 camps. The traverse from the second parallel by 
 the Portage Path is 658.53, length of the Portage 
 644.55 chains. 
 
 July 21 — Continued a traverse down the river, 
 from which I was allured by Mr. Pease's pack- 
 horse man who sounded the Indian whoop and 
 being answered refused to reply as we neared 
 him. (Mr. Pease had run the south line of the 
 Western Reserve, from a point 20 miles west of 
 ihe Pennsylvania line, to the Tuscarawas river in 
 
 36 
 
Original Surveyors 
 
 1 8 days.) Mr. Pease connected the traverse with 
 mine at number 66, forty-five chains southwest of 
 the landing. Returned to the upper headquarters, 
 (near Akron,) with Mr. Pease and party in the 
 evening. Except the Cuyahoga hill, (north end of 
 Portage Path,) the Portage will admit of an excel- 
 lent road and that is not so formidable as the one 
 at Queenstown, Upper Canada." 
 
 Thus ends MosesWarren. 
 
 Amzi Atwater states: — "After a few days pre- 
 paration, the two boats with some of the surveyors 
 started up the river with the assistants and provis- 
 ions. I with one or two other men was sent to get 
 the horses up above the mouth of Tinker's Creek 
 for the use of the surve3'ors. Not far above the 
 creek we found the remnants of some old huts, 
 parti}' overgrown with thorn and plum trees. One 
 or more fragments of doors were fastened with nails 
 which to me was a curiosity to see in such a place. 
 I suppose the}' were the remains of the old Mora- 
 vian settlement. We found the boats and gave up 
 our horses." 
 
 "We succeeded in getting the boats past Old 
 Portage, and about a half a mile above the south 
 branch of the Cuyahoga, where we established a 
 camp. I was left there in charge of the provisions 
 and stores, while some of the surveyors run lines 
 to the Pennsylvania line, and others back. I 
 erected a shed covered with bark to cover the 
 provisions, etc., and a tolerably good camp for 
 
 37 
 
Original Surveyors 
 
 myself. The surveying parties were frequently 
 coming and going and once in a while the boats 
 came up, some sick, others well." 
 
 While there two or more Indian hunters were 
 camped some distance near the river, below us; 
 one of them frequently visited us. He was more 
 active and more talkative than Indians in general." 
 Sunday, Aug. 27 — The committee concluded 
 to have Esquire Warren go up the Portage Path 
 and explore there and some towns on the river. 
 
 38 
 
Portage Path The Western Boundary of 
 the United States until 1805 
 
 Colonel Chas. Whittlesey, the President of the 
 Northern Ohio and Western Reserve Historical 
 Societ}-, a former Summit count}' boy, the best 
 historian the Western Reserve ever had, and a 
 man whose word was looked upon as authoritative, 
 said: — 
 
 "When Governor St Clair erected the county 
 of Washington, Ohio, in 1778, it embraced the 
 Western Reserve, east of the Cuyahoga. West of 
 this river, the Portage Path, and the Tuscarawas 
 was then held by the Indians and the British." 
 
 The ordinance of 1787, "Ohio's Charter of Lib- 
 erty," the last act of the "Old Congress, "says: — 
 
 "The utmost good faith shall alwa3'S be ob- 
 served towards the Indians; their lands and prop- 
 erty shall never be taken from them without their 
 consent." The same act of Congress says: — 
 
 "The navigable waters leading into the Missis- 
 sippi and St. Lawrence, and the carrying places be- 
 tween the same, shall be common highivays and 
 FOREVER FREE." 
 
 Colonel Chas. Whittlesey has stated: — • 
 
 "When she (Connecticut) sold to the Con- 
 
 39 
 
The Western Boundary 
 
 necticut Land Companj', in 1795, both parties im- 
 agined that the deed of Connecticut conveyed pow- 
 ers of civil government to the company, and that 
 the grantees might organize a new state." 
 
 This question, was not settled until 1801, and 
 then, by act of Congress. The residents of that 
 portion of the Western Reserve east of the Cu}'a- 
 hoga river and Portage Path, petitioned the Con- 
 gress of the United States to receive them into the 
 union of the states and territories, and for civil and 
 jurisdictional purposes to annex them to the 
 'Northwestern Territor}'." This was granted by 
 act of Congress in 1801, but on April 30, 1802, 
 Congress passed an act enabling Ohio to form a 
 state government. 
 
 A treaty was concluded at Fort Mcintosh, Jan- 
 uary 21, 1785, with the W3'andot, Delaware, 
 Chippewa and Ottawa nations, b\^ which the 
 boundary line between the United States and the 
 Indian nations was declared to begin: — 
 
 "At the mouth of the river Cuyahoga, and to 
 extend up said river to the Portage between that 
 and the Tuscarawas branch of the Muskingum, 
 thence down that branch etc." This was made bv 
 the United States, and confirmed by the acts of 
 her Congress, and all citizens of the United States, 
 under heavy penalties were prohibited from set- 
 tling on land west of this line. 
 
 The western boundary line of the United 
 States had been previously fixed by the treat}' of 
 
 40 
 
A Unlet Strctcli on (li.- ( Wiyalioiiii 
 
The Western Boundary 
 
 Fort Stanwix, October 27,1784, at the Ohio River. 
 The English Parliament, ten years earlier had 
 passed an act making the Ohio River her south 
 western boundar3\ The claim of the English mon- 
 arch to the northwestern territor}' was false, and 
 he knew it, but under extreme pressure he ceded it 
 to the United States at the treat.v of Paris, Sept. 3d 
 1783. The treaty of Fort Stanwix followed the suc- 
 ceeding year, making the boundary line the Ohio 
 river. The succeeding 3'ear, 1785, brought the Mc- 
 intosh treaty, establishing the western boundary 
 line at Portage Path and Cuyahoga Valley. This 
 was confirmed by the "Old Congress" the same 
 year, and was reaffirmed by the same great author- 
 ity in Ohio's Charter of Freedom, the Ordinance of 
 1787, when it says: — "Their lands and property 
 (the Indians') shall never be taken away from them 
 Avith-out their consent." 
 
 The western boundary, thus established at the 
 treaty of Fort Mcintosh in 1785, was subsequently 
 confirmed b)' the treaties of Fort Finney, 1786, 
 and Fort Harmar, 1789, all of which were accepted 
 and confirmed by the Congress of the United 
 States. 
 
 The claim of Connecticut was adjudicated 
 twice. First, by a Royal Commission in 1664, be- 
 tween the Colony and the Duke of York, and again, 
 by a commission appointed b}' the Congress of the 
 United States in 1782. 
 
 Connecticut and the land company. Congress 
 
 ^41 
 
The Western Boundary 
 
 and her authorized officers, the surveyors of 1796, 
 and men of all classes, and in ever^f walk of life, 
 accepted the Portage Path as the boundarj^ between 
 the United States and the wild nations of the west- 
 ern continent. 
 
 The Western Reserve east of Portage Path, 
 was four times the subject of treaty by the United 
 States of America, and was three times paid for in 
 government funds. 
 
 There is no question or doubt that the Portage 
 Path was the western boundary of the United 
 States for twenty years. 
 
 It took England two years to "falsify the re- 
 turns," and quit claim to this country that they 
 did not own in fee simple. France transferred her 
 rights to England except her southern possessions. 
 England transferred her rights south of a certain 
 line to this country. England quit-claimed only 
 her rights beyond the Ohio. She had no civil 
 rights and but very dubious political ones. The 
 soil beyond the Ohio was held in fee simple by the 
 various Indian nations; they owned all the civil 
 and political rights, it was hereditary, they were 
 indigenous to the soil, the native lords to the 
 manor born; their lands could be obtained only by 
 conquest, by purchase, or by treaty. 
 
 There were no Indian reservations in those 
 days. The Indian did not need them. The 
 Indian did the reserving himself, and counted his 
 
 42 
 
The Western Boundary 
 
 many scalps which hung drying amidst the smoke 
 of his own rude lodge. 
 
 For centuries the Portage Path was one of the 
 greatest "carrying places,, in the "Ohio Coun- 
 try." 
 
 The giant Eries were indigenous to the soil. 
 They held the southern shore of Lake Erie from 
 Sandusky to Redstone Old Fort in Pennsylvania. 
 They were the makers of aboriginal history, and 
 held the"Five Nations" at bay until the latter part 
 of the 17th century. Their favorite rivers were the 
 Cuyahoga and Rocky. Over these they spread a 
 half-barbarian civilization. What scenes of pomp 
 and splendor were here? I am proud to be a citizen 
 of a locality where so much has been accom- 
 plished, not only in ancient, but in modern times. 
 
 The history of England's claiming to own 
 territory west of the Ohio is somewhat complex 
 and is built upon a tissue of lies. It was made by 
 Sir Wm. Johnson, her somewhat famous Indian 
 agent for her North American possessions. A big- 
 ger grafter never lived. He was a man who had 
 much to conceal and he rendered England's posi- 
 tion more complicated by assuring her Lords of 
 Trade that England laid claim to lands as far west 
 as the Mississippi, b}' reason of the conquest 
 by his auxiliaries, the Iroquois. 
 
 The facts in the case are, that De Monts, the 
 father of Canada, had incurred the undying hatred 
 of the "Five Nations", who first threw their influ- 
 
 43 
 
The Western Boundary 
 
 ence with the Dutch, and afterwards, with the 
 English. Johnson had just stolen some 40.000 
 acres of good land and some one had to get busy 
 in order to direct attention in other directions; so 
 the Five Nations were sent out against the Miamis 
 and Shawnees whom they drove beyond the Mis- 
 sissippi, thus establishing a claim to the soil 
 which was but short lived, as we shall hereinafter 
 show. The first man and antiquarian who object- 
 ed to the statement of Johnson was General 
 William Henr}' Harrison, who took issue with him 
 and in an address before the Historical Society of 
 Ohio, in 1839. After reviewing the whole mass of 
 proof in an extremel}^ impartial manner, he said 
 that "Without any reasonable doubt, the pre- 
 tensions of the Five Nations to a conquest of the 
 country from the Scioto to the Mississppi are en- 
 tirely groundless." Since his time, historical 
 documents in plenty have come to hand showing 
 that not satisfied with their former foray, they at- 
 tacked Starved Rock, on which at that time was 
 perched Fort St Louis, and were repulsed with a 
 heavy loss. The various Illinois tribes assisted 
 by the Miamis, Ottawas, Shawnees and Pottawat- 
 omies, drove them out of the Ohio Valle}^ never 
 more to return as conquerors, bent on conquest, as 
 they never made an effort to recover the territory 
 from which they were driven in defeat in 1684. So 
 much for Great Britain's claim to any territor}' 
 west of the AUeghanies, and this was the claim 
 
 44 
 
The Western Boundary 
 
 ceded to the United States at the treat}- of Paris 
 in 1783, ninety-nine 3^ears later. 
 
 At the treaty of Paris, Count D' Aranda, a 
 grandee of Spain, appeared, on the part of that 
 kingdom, before the commissioners appointed by 
 England and the United States, and made stren- 
 ous objections to our commissioners demanding 
 that the boundarj- line be fixed at the Mississippi. 
 He claimed the countr}' west of a certain line pass- 
 ing through Ohio, as territorj' held by Spanish 
 arms. In this, Spain did not stand alone, for 
 France was with them in their demands. England 
 hesitated and wavered, finally refusing to sign and 
 retiring upon her dignit5^ Another year passed by 
 without an}' result; then England agreed to make 
 the Ohio river the western boundar}'. Spain and 
 France demanded a diagonal line which was to com- 
 mence at the mouth of the Great Kanawha river, and 
 to run northwesterly to the west end of Lake Erie. 
 This line was to run just west of the present Ohio 
 counties of Huron and Erie, and commenced 263 
 miles, river measurement, below Pittsburg. To 
 this Mr. Adams objected, demanding that the line 
 be made where asked for by the American com- 
 missioners. Lo was not heard from, he was too 
 lowly and feeble to be admitted to the great council 
 of mighty nations; he had been robbed b}' all, and 
 his remaining possessions were to be wrested from 
 him without his knowledge or consent. Mr. Adams 
 fought so strenously and persistently for his line 
 
 45 
 
The Western Boundary 
 
 that after the second year had gone by England 
 slowl}' and reluctantly conveyed land she did not 
 own, and which she knew she did not own. With 
 the exception of fixing the western boundary the 
 treaty had been ready to sign since early in 1782. 
 
 No man, no corporation, no country, can cede 
 land legally which does not belong to him or them. 
 The land in question belonged to the poor Indian 
 in fee simple, and could never be wrested from 
 him except by might or purchase. Neither of 
 these conditions had England ever met; nor 
 had she ever undertaken any civil or jurisdictional 
 rights in the territorv. 
 
 The poor Indian employed no lawyer with his 
 moral sense of right and wrong blunted because he 
 was more often called upon to defend wrong than 
 right, and was always ready to sell to the highest 
 bidder. Lo was no linguist, and did not under- 
 stand the verbiage of the English language, and in 
 signing treaties knew not what he was signing, ex- 
 cept the lines of the land he was conveying and 
 the compensation he was to receive. All other con- 
 ditions and provisos to him were null and void, 
 and would not stand in any court of this or an}'^ 
 other civilized land in which graft did not enter as 
 a factor. 
 
 The whole history of the various treaties of 
 the United States with the natives of the soil has 
 been but the history of wrong, avarice, graft, de~ 
 
 46 
 
The Western Boundary 
 
 ceit and fraud. If the Indian did not like it he 
 could repudiate — and he did. 
 
 But the everlasting infamy' of governmental 
 effort in this direction has resulted in staining the 
 escutcheon of American Libert}' a deeper d3'e. 
 
 47 
 
Portage Path 
 
 The Center of Indian Communication 
 
 Long before Lake Erie was located on the 
 map of the world, or the La Belle Riviere known 
 to the geographers of Europe, many decades before 
 the Argonauts of civilization had penetrated west- 
 ward beyond the St Lawrence, great aborigin- 
 al highways existed connecting the distant waters 
 of the large lakes with the great salt sea, and with 
 the might}' Mississippi, the father of all living riv- 
 ers on the wild American continent. 
 
 Journey with us to that distant, forest-clad 
 land, and pass over with us some of these ancient 
 trails that push their winding, tortuous way 
 by the banks of sedg3' lakes, across wide and 
 swift rivers, or else following the early conforma- 
 tion of the shore line of the immense fresh water 
 lakes, or striking out into the heart of the wilder- 
 ness for hundreds of miles, turning, twisting but 
 ever moving forward to a known objective point, 
 without loss of time. 
 
 These were the highways of that restless, ad- 
 venturous, migratory race or races which held the 
 country by virtue of original possession. Along 
 
 48 
 
The Center of Indian Communication 
 
Indian Communication 
 
 these routes the}' came with swift and tireless feet, 
 bent, either upon the delights of the chase, or upon 
 the much-to-be-desired war of the race. War 
 brought distinction, made mighty chiefs, furnished 
 an exercise for their naturally cruel instincts, 
 brought plunder and pelf and profit; abounded in 
 change of scene, exciting episodes and startling 
 features. Its climaxes were not always pleasant or 
 desirable, but they were accepted with the stoic 
 philosophy of the red man as the fortune of war. 
 
 Along these lengthening trails came and went 
 these feather-bedecked, sinister-painted, wild men 
 of the forest. Swiftl}^ surely, without noise or 
 bluster, these hyenas of the wilderness sped on 
 their way of destruction. 
 
 The first intimation the unsuspecting whites 
 had of their presence was the ringing war whoop, 
 the midnight attack, the burning cabin, the shrieks 
 of childish terror, or the wail of female despair. The 
 gride of the hatchet, the echoing scalp-yell, the 
 crack of the rifle, the shout of defiance, were swift 
 and fleeting episodes of the great drama enacted 
 throughout the length and breadth of the whole, 
 wild, western border-land. The isolated hamlet, 
 or the lonely cabin home despoiled, the lust of 
 blood glutted, and hampered with prisoners, or else 
 laden with plunder, they made their way back to 
 secure retreats among forest-embowered and dis- 
 tant valleys. Leaving no trail on these hard-beat- 
 
 49 
 
Indian Communication 
 
 en, compact roadway's, the forest closed upon them 
 and— they were gone. 
 
 "One-half the terror inspired by these sudden 
 fora3"S was due to the fact of the m3'stery, the si- 
 lence, and the utter impossibility of retaliation or 
 reprisal. The aboriginal forests opened and — thej' 
 came. They opened and — they were gone." Mys- 
 tic fear and horror brooded ever on the early steps 
 of the pioneer who dared to assail the virgin forests 
 of the west, and endeavor to carve from out its 
 mysterious silence, a wilderness home. 
 
 It has been a wonder to the engineers of the 
 modern world to know how a people who were ap- 
 parently deficient of engineering skill could go so 
 straightly and surelj' to a given point throughout a 
 country fissured with ravines, dotted with fresh 
 water lakes, broken with swamps, traversed by 
 mighty rivers, streams and rivulets, and the whole 
 covered with a dense, heav}^ primeval forest 
 growth. 
 
 They have wondered why the early roadways of 
 the whites, and the railroads of today generally fol- 
 low ancient Indian trails. 
 
 They have wondered how these "lords to the 
 manor born" always knew the best springs, the 
 safest fords, the driest and most lovely camping 
 grounds, and the securest retreats. But this was a 
 part of their woodcraft, a matter of hereditary 
 instinct as well as of daily practice. 
 
 As a matter of policy the Indian ceded to the 
 
 50 
 
Indian Communication 
 
 British in 1701 the country within the following 
 described limits, old l^nglish spelling and all; "a 
 tract of land lying between the great lake Ottowa- 
 wa and the lake called by the natives Sahiquage, 
 and by the Christians Swege, and runns till it butts 
 upon the Twichtwichs, and is bounded by a place 
 called Ouadoge. conteigning in length about Eight 
 Hundred miles and in bredth Four Hundred miles 
 including the country where the Bevers, the deers 
 and Elks keep." 
 
 It is in this section that we propose to re- 
 locate these devious, ancient roadway's of a great 
 S3'stem. Ouadoge means Chicago, or the head of 
 Lake Michigan: Lake Ottowawa is Lake Huron, 
 while the lake "called b_y the natives Sahiquage, 
 and by the Christians Swege," is Lake Erie. 
 
 It is true that the British authorities never 
 laid much stress upon this cession of territory, 
 and the Indians ever after claimed it. The pur- 
 pose for which the treaty was made, was to gain a 
 title to the territorj' in order to prevent the French 
 from absorbing the whole of it for the King of 
 France. The French, however, regarded it as 
 fait accompli. 
 
 "The countless pads of innumerable feet had 
 worn the soil of the forest over which ran these 
 wildwood trails, through centuries of war and 
 chase, into the semblance of hard-packed,, well- 
 worn roadways, that had a fascination all their 
 own. The narrow tracks winding among the 
 
 51 
 
Indian Communication 
 
 forest trees and curving between sloping hill- 
 sides, stretched away into the unknown heart of 
 the new world. When settlers came they still 
 wound their way, the strangest of all roads, in 
 some places a foot broad and thousands of miles 
 in length, cut in places, a foot below the surround- 
 ing surface by restless feet. In other words it 
 widened and broadened into a noble highwaj'. 
 These great national highways for the Indian 
 nations have been described as "beginning no- 
 where and ending in the same place." "This may 
 be true in a certain sense, as they so intermingled 
 and ran into another, crossed and re-crossed each 
 other, that to a white man they seemed but threads 
 of a devious maze, whose tangled ends could not 
 be found by mathematical calculation; 5'et the}' 
 were the first faint harbingers of a coming civiliza- 
 tion a civilization that was to astonish the world 
 with its virile force, and as such possess a charm 
 that is hard to analyze or express." The better 
 known of these ancient highway's, such as 
 "Nemacolin's Path," or the old "Bay Path," have 
 been made famous in song and story. Alice 
 Morse Earle has written: "l feel deeply the in- 
 explicable charm which attaches itself to these old 
 paths or trails. I have ridden hundreds of miles 
 on these various Indian paths and I ever love to 
 trace the roadway where it is now the broad 
 traveled road, and where it turns aside in an over- 
 grown and narrow lane which is to-day almost as 
 
 52 
 
Indian Communication 
 
 neglected and wild as the old path. There seems 
 to cling to it something of the human interest ever 
 found in a foot-path across a pasture, or up a 
 wooded hill, full of charm, suggestion, of senti- 
 ment. ' ' Holland has also written of this subject with 
 loving touch when he said: "The path led through 
 the woods which bore the marks of centuries, over 
 barren hills that had been licked by the Indian's 
 hounds of fire, and along the banks of streams 
 that the seine had never dragged." Hulbert has 
 written: "To one whose imagination is grounded 
 in the annals of those early days, a walk on one of 
 the old time thoroughfares is a glimpse backward 
 which for wildness and meaning will prove of more 
 inspiration than a year spent in our museums. 
 The story of these various highways, their build- 
 ing and their fortune, is the story of the people 
 who have and who do now inhabit the land. The 
 stud}^ of them is an important story, it has already 
 been too long neglected. Every road has a story 
 and the burden of every stor}' is a need. The 
 greater a need, the better the story and the longer 
 and more important the road." 
 
 The Great National Highwa}^ for the Indian 
 nations of the northern part of the country com- 
 menced at Detroit and followed down the western 
 bank of that river until it struck the body of water 
 variously known under the cryptic names of the 
 secretive Indian, and the no less secretive early 
 white explorer, as Lake Sahiquage, and Lake 
 
Indian Communication 
 
 Swege, as well as the lake of the Cat as used by 
 the native, and as Lake Oswego, and finally as 
 Lac Erius of the early French, until it became 
 crystalized b}' common use into its present name 
 of Lake Erie; so named no doubt from that mystic 
 band of savage warriors who so long held the coun- 
 try lying south of the shores of the great lake 
 against their brethren to the east and north. 
 Following the shore line of the western end of 
 this lake, it came rounding along until it 
 struck the Miami of the lakes, now designated 
 as the Maumee. Crossing this stream it bore 
 to the southeast, closely following the shore 
 line, where practicable, until it reached in the 
 neighborhood of Sandusky Ba_v, when turning 
 nearly south, it crossed the Sandusky River, and 
 rounded the head of the bay, there-after again 
 following the shore line eastward. This was An 
 important point. Here opened a water highway 
 for canoe travel, which reached by the way of 
 Lake Erie, to the Atlantic seaboard, via Buffalo 
 Creek, and around the portage at Niagara. Here 
 too, was the objective point of one of the "Ohio 
 country's" carrying places on the "Gulf to the 
 Great Lakes," route. Here too ended the Pitts- 
 burg and Sandusky southern trail, as well as the 
 Fort Mcintosh and Sandusky central trail. San- 
 dusky was one of the points at which all trails 
 centered; from thence running to various parts in 
 the present state of Ohio. 
 
 54 
 
Indian Communication 
 
 It is not the province of this article to follow 
 the course of all these trails, but only such as 
 were the great highways of travel between the east 
 and west, north and south. The Lake Shore 
 Trail continued eastwardly from Sandusky but 
 was little traveled until Presque .Isle was reached, 
 on account of the numerous rivers entering the 
 lake between these points. Six large streams 
 flowed into the lake between Sandusky and the 
 present site of Cleveland. Nine large streams 
 entered the lake from the south between the mouth 
 of the Cuyahoga and Presque Isle. The trail 
 followed the curving lines of the lake shore until it 
 reached the mouth of Rocky River, to-day some 
 six miles west of Cleveland. It was at this point 
 that the flotilla of Gen. Bradstreet, with his 300 
 boats and twelve hundred men came to an untime- 
 ly and disastrous end. Driven by a furious lake 
 storm they here sought a port and were driven on 
 the high, precipitous rocks of the shore line. That 
 terrible night of 1764 has written its bloody record 
 in the vicinity, and to this day the waves of the 
 great lake yet throw up sad memorials of that ex- 
 pedition. The few wretched survivors were obliged 
 to follow the winding Indian lake shore trail to 
 Niagara, where they arrived in a starved and quite 
 exhausted condition. 
 
 From here the trail continued eastward, fol- 
 lowing the shore line, and crossed the mouth of 
 the Cuyahoga, where for many years the aborigi- 
 
 55 
 
Indian Communication 
 
 nes maintained a ferr}^ for their convenience. It 
 was at this point the French held a treaty with the 
 Indian tribes in 1684. If we are to believe his 
 geographer, Joliet came to this point. Then 
 came La Salle in 1679, making his way down the 
 Cuyahoga to the Muskingum, as the shortest, the 
 driest and most solid portage on the "Gulf to the 
 Great Lakes" which was located at the end of 
 canoe navigation on this river. Here came Major 
 Rogers and 300 British soldiers in 1760, and here, 
 and at that time, Pontiac, the fire-brand of the 
 west, first came prominently before the American 
 people. This same year came Geo. Croghan, the 
 lieutenant of the British, Indian agent for the 
 British colonies of North America, and in the 
 succeeding year here came his superior, Sir Wm, 
 Johnson. Continuing, the trail led to the lake shore 
 to Conneaut Creek, where came Moses Cleaveland 
 with his 51 surveyors and employees in 1796. It 
 was here they built their "castle", and it was here 
 that the 4th of July was celebrated on Ohio soil, 
 for the first time. These rivers all had sand bars 
 just outside their mouths on which crossing could 
 be made in quiet weather. 
 
 From this point the trail kept on to Presque 
 Isle, now Erie, Pa. On the baj' at this place the 
 French had in the seventeenth centur}' built a fort 
 of "squared chestnut logs." This certainly was 
 unique as it is the only one on record. Fifteen 
 miles south of this place, on Lake Petite, the 
 
 56 
 
Pictured Tree on Path 
 
Indian Communication 
 
 source of the "Riverie Aux Boeufs," lay Fort La 
 Bceuf, built at a much earlier period than history- 
 has given credit for. It was here in 1753, came 
 George Washington and Christopher Gist, and as 
 he remained several daj's he may have visited the 
 Lake Shore trail. From this point the trail con- 
 tinued to Buffalo Creek, and Niagara the scene of 
 one of the earliest and most sanguinary of tribal 
 battles; from here it passed over the Iroquois, or 
 Mohawk Valle}' trail, as it has been variously 
 called, down the Mohawk and Hudson valleys, 
 taking to the watershed dividing the waters be- 
 tween the lake and those flowing, into the Ohio or 
 its tributaries. 
 
 Radiating from Sandusky, one of the greatest 
 historical points in aboriginal times, were two 
 great east and west highways which led to Fort 
 Pitt. These trails followed the same path after 
 leaving this point, running nearl}' south for thirty 
 miles, closeh' following the Huron River, and 
 crossing it twice. At this point lay the army of 
 Gen. Perkins in the war of 1812. The trail di- 
 vided at the remains of an old Ottawa fort, erected 
 in 1704. The northern branch, called the central 
 or Mahoning trail by the natives, and the San- 
 dusky and Fort Mcintosh, or Sandusky and Fort 
 Pitt, or Fort Pitt and Detroit trail by the whites, 
 was the most direct, the shortest by 40 miles, and 
 the driest of all east and west trails, as it followed 
 closely the watershed of northern Ohio and had 
 
 57 
 
Indian Communication 
 
 but two rivers to cross — the Cuyahoga and Mahon- 
 ing, and it was plentifully sprinkled with living 
 springs of soft, pure water. It ran eastward until 
 it crossed the Cuyahoga at Portage Path. At this 
 point was the Indian Cuyahoga town. Here, dur- 
 ing the war of 1812, lay an army of occupation 
 under General Wadsworth, the watch-dog of 
 northern Ohio. By his instructions a military 
 road was finished from the Cuyahoga westward, 
 along the trail just mentioned. 
 
 Over this road all provisions, munitions of war, 
 ordnance and stores designed for the western forts, 
 and the army of Gen. Harrison, were transported. 
 It cost $100 per barrel for flour and $1,000.00 per 
 cannon to move them to the forks of the Maumee. 
 These stores came from the mouth of the Cuyahoga, 
 or the present site of Cleveland, then a village of 
 less than 150 inhabitants. The stores were loaded 
 upon narrow flat-boats propelled by oars to the 
 "Upper Headquarters," as Gen. Wadsworth's 
 camp was then called. Here during the war hun- 
 dreds of teams loaded and unloaded each day, so 
 great was the river traffic, the lake then being held 
 by British war ships. The surveyors who platted 
 the eastern half of Western Reserve in 1796-7, had 
 their headquarters, near here, and they too called 
 it "Upper Headquarters." To this point came the 
 murderous Chief George and his band of bloody 
 cut-throats, only waiting for favorable news from 
 Tippecanoe before precipitating themselves upon 
 
 58 
 
Indian Communication 
 
 the defenceless and scattered settlements of north- 
 ern Ohio. Over this trail came the heroic Geo. 
 Croghan and his gallant defenders of the immortal 
 Fort Stephenson: And last, and it may be least, 
 General Lafaj'ette passed over it on his return to 
 America. 
 
 Crossing the river, the trail bore slightly north 
 of east, to the fall of Hopaccon. Here, on either 
 bank were located Indian villages. It was here, 
 so far as is known, that the first white female cap- 
 tives were held prisoners within the present limits 
 of the Western Reserve. From this point the 
 trail led on to "Big Spring", now within the limits 
 of Cuyahoga Falls. Near here Capt Brady's men 
 were ambushed and routed, taking the back trail 
 for Fort Pitt at double quick. The trail continued 
 in the same eastwardly direction and passed Silver 
 Lake where two more Indian villages were situ- 
 ated, and then ran directl}^ for Standing Stone, 
 now Kent, the site chosen for the State Normal 
 School. It was at this point that Brady made his 
 celebrated leap. This point was named by the 
 Indians from the fact that a rugged, lonely, solita- 
 ry column of rock stood in the center of the 
 Cuyahoga River, on the summit of which grew a 
 single, ragged pine. Before reaching this point, 
 at Fish Creek, the trail divided, one branch run- 
 ning northwest to the Mingo, Ottawa and Seneca 
 villages on the upper Cuyahoga; it crossed to west 
 side of the Cuyahoga at Tinker's Creek, some 14 
 
 59 
 
Indian Communication 
 
 miles north of its southern crossing, where were 
 the remains of an ancient Indian village and of the 
 old Moravian settlements Thence it continued 
 down the west bank until the mouth of the river 
 was reached. Over this trail in 1787, came im- 
 mense pack trains loaded with flour from Pitts- 
 burg to the British garrisons at Detroit and to the 
 west. The flour was taken at the mouth of the 
 Cuj'ahoga by the military' schooner "Mackinaw" 
 to its destination. These pack trains were in 
 charge of Col. Hillman, who afterwards settled in 
 the Reserve. Ninety to 120 horses and ten drivers 
 usually composed the train. After leaving Fish 
 Creek, one mile east of Stow Corners, the com- 
 bined trails crossed Break-Neck Creek, and on up 
 its valle}', crossing the "Summit" near Ravenna, 
 it passed the "Salt Springs" of the Mahoning, and 
 crossed this river three miles above Youngstown, 
 then Mahoning Town, and kept down the north 
 bank to its Junction with the Beaver River; thence 
 down that stream to the present site of Beaver, 
 on the south side of the Mahoning, where the 
 Shenango River forms a junction with that stream, 
 was the Indian Kithknike Town. From here a 
 trail led to Beaver, on the south side of the river, 
 and another ran north-east through the Indian 
 towns of Shamingo and Pemtuing, and led to Fort 
 Venango. 
 
 At Beaver, the Presque Isle trail, the Central, 
 the Southern, the Scioto, the Kithknike trails all 
 
 60 
 
Indian Communication 
 
 joined, forming one trail into Pittsburg, commencing 
 across the river at Fort Mcintosh. 
 
 The Central trail crossing the commencement 
 of Portage Path, was fully -^-0 miles shorter than 
 any other east and west trail between Pittsburg, 
 Sandusky and Detroit. It was drier, better, safer, 
 and well watered by living springs. It ran nearl}^ 
 all the distance along the high ground of the wa- 
 tershed. The townships along the eastern half of 
 this route were settled in the eighteenth centur}^ 
 but for 20 years thereafter bands of Indians passed 
 along this path. The early whites found pictured 
 trees, and huge cairns of stones along this abori- 
 ginal roadwa}'. 
 
 The Southern trail, after it left the old Ottawa 
 fort on the Huron, ran southeast, crossing the 
 Walhonding river, then known as the White Wo- 
 man's river, from the white woman who lived at 
 White Woman's town, on White Woman's river. 
 It passed through Mohican John's town, and af- 
 ter leaving this place the trail bent slightl}^ north 
 of east for about 20 miles, passing through the 
 Delaware villages of Ashland County, the beautiful 
 village of Greentown, the sad scene of white man's 
 perfidy and dishonor; and the notorious and oft 
 quoted "Hell Town," and on, until it crossed the 
 Little Muskingum river, now called the Tuscara- 
 was, at its Junction with the Big Sandy, Thus it 
 passed through the unfortunate Moravian towns, 
 the scene of Ohio's deepest, darkest, and bloodiest 
 
 61 
 
Indian Communication 
 
 shame. It was here the first sermon was preached 
 by a white man in the Northwestern territory, where 
 the first white child was born, and where the first 
 church bell rang out its summons to a sin-laden 
 world. 
 
 From here the trail either went directly to, or 
 branched, to the Indian towns of Beaver, Tuscaro- 
 ra, Killbucks town, and from here it bore, first 
 southeast, then northeast, passing through Shin- 
 goes town and crossing. Yellow Creek at whose 
 mouth Logan lost all his relatives through the in- 
 human cruelty of the Indian hunters of the upper 
 Ohio: swept on and crossed the Beaver and 
 reached the Ohio opposite Fort Mcintosh, the 
 Beaver, Pa., of to-da}'. This southern trail was 
 some forty miles longer than the more northern 
 route, and was more traveled and better known as 
 it reached many important Indian towns on the 
 Tuscarawas and upper Muskingum, the Mohican 
 and Walhonding. 
 
 After crossing Yellow Creek, this path made a 
 junction with the great Fort Pitt and Scioto trail; 
 both from this point making a single trail to Fort 
 Pitt, via Fort Mcintosh. From the Yellow Creek 
 junction the Scioto trail bore directly southwest, 
 crossing the Walhonding at New Town and strik- 
 ing the Scioto at upper Shawnee town, a distance 
 of 190 miles from Fort Mcintosh. On this route, 
 on the west bank of the Tuscarawas, a short dis- 
 tance below the junction of the Big Sandy with this 
 
 62 
 
Indian Communication 
 
 stream, was built the first parapet and stockade 
 fort ever erected within the present limits of the 
 State of Ohio. This was Fort Lawrens, and its 
 designer and builder was General Lachlin Mc- 
 intosh, the commander of the Western Military 
 Department. He will be remembered as killing 
 the Hon. Button Gwinnet, in a duel fought in 
 1777. Gwinnett was a signer of the Declaration 
 of Independence. 
 
 In 1778, Gen. Mcintosh with 1,000 men left 
 Fort Pitt. His original intention was to march 
 his army to Detroit. He pushed boldly out into 
 the unbroken forest. With so much secrecy was 
 his army raised, and so quickly did they move 
 through the Indian country, that the savages were 
 not aware of his presence until he had completed 
 the fort. After garrisoning and provisioning it, 
 he fell back with his force to Fort Pitt. The post 
 was besieged nearly all winter by the Indians. 
 After several massacres, and ambushes, and many 
 romantic and hair-raising episodes, the garrison 
 evacuated the place. 
 
 The remaining earthworks were entirely oblit- 
 erated in 1826 by the building of the Ohio canal. 
 Mcintosh undoubtedly followed Bouquet's line of 
 march, when in 1764 he cut a wide swath through 
 the forest from Fort Mcintosh to this point, rescu- 
 ing the white prisoners held in captivity by the dif- 
 erent Indian tribes of the Ohio valley. 
 
 63 
 
Indian Communication 
 
 This trail also passed through the important 
 Indian towns of Wauktaunkee town, Three Legs 
 old town, old Wyandot town, Bullets town, Tom's 
 town, and the before-mentioned Newcomers town. 
 It passed near but not through the Pickaway 
 towns. 
 
 At upper Shawneetown a trail ran directly 
 east, seventy miles, to Muskingum river, nearh' 
 following the present National road. Another trail 
 ran from this town, west of north via the "San- 
 dusky plains" and upper Sandusky, (Fremont) 
 one hundred and seventy miles, striking the "Mi- 
 ami of the lakes" at the junction of the Auglaize 
 and Maumee rivers where old Fort Minnis stood. 
 
 Before reaching upper Shawnee town the 
 Scioto trail passed through a localit}^ that has held 
 much to interest the antiquarian and archaeolo- 
 gist. South of the trail lay an ancient walled city, 
 whose earthworks, earthen walls, circles, squares, 
 parallelograms, semi-circles, covered ways and 
 mounds spread over some five square miles of ter- 
 ritory, are emphaticall3' suggestive of the long, 
 m3'steTious past of our country's histor}'. 
 
 Commencing at a point on the upper Shawnee 
 and Fort Minnis trail, about 30 miles south of up- 
 per Sandusky, the Scioto and Cuyahoga war trail 
 ran a little north of east some 72 miles to Hell 
 town, thence directl}' northeast as straight as a 
 bird could fly, to the Portage Path and the Cuy- 
 ahoga valley. 
 
 64 
 
Indian Communication 
 
 Returning to the lake shore we find another 
 trail leaving Presque Isle, running due south fif- 
 teen miles to Fort Le Boeuf, on Lake Petite, the 
 source of Riverie Aux Boeufs, of the early French. 
 Geo. Croghan, Sir Wm. Johnson's lieutenant, field 
 agent and Indian agent came here in 1760. In 
 1753. George Washington, then Colonel of Vir- 
 ginian troops, was sent here on a mission by the 
 Colonial authorities. He remained three days and 
 conferred with Le Gardeur de St. Pierre, the 
 commandant of the French fort. Mr. Clayton, of 
 Virginia, in a letter to the Ro\'al Society of Eng- 
 land, bearing date of Aug. 17, 1668, speaks of this 
 river and lake and infers a much earlier settlement 
 than history states. In the light of to-day's know- 
 ledge it is mighty interesting reading. The first 
 English map in which even Lake Erie is laid down 
 is Morden's "New Map of the English Plantations 
 in America." This map gives the name of the 
 lake as 'Felis Lake," or in other words the "Lake 
 of the Cat." Overtons "New Map of America," 
 issued in 1740, places lakes Huron, Ontarius and 
 Erius directly south of each other. In 1756, 
 Popple's "A Map of the British Empire in Ameri- 
 ca," shows La Riverie Aux Bceufs, yet knows no 
 Monongahela or Kanawha. 
 
 From Fort Le Boeuf the trail ran nearl_v south 
 through Pennsylvania, some one hundred and 
 twenty miles to Fort Pitt. 
 
 65 
 
Indian Communication 
 
 From IMohican John's town, the point 45 
 miles south of Sandusk)'-, where the southern east 
 and west trail turned east, another trail bearing 
 west of south, led down the west side of White 
 Woman's river to Owl's Town, on the big bend 
 of that stream. From here it continued in the 
 same direction to Lick-town, on the upper waters 
 of the Scioto; and then down the west side of the 
 river, passing the town of Circleville, where stood 
 a series of ancient works. In 1815, these works of 
 a lost race were in a fair state of preservation. 
 They consisted of circular and square earthworks, 
 connected by a gateway. The circular work was 
 double walled, with a ditch between its inner and 
 outer wall. The walls at that time were about 
 twenty feet high and sixty-nine rods in diameter. 
 Opposite the gateway leading into the square 
 works was a semi-circular work, obviously for 
 guarding the entrance. The square was fifty-five 
 rods from side to side, with walls ten feet in 
 height. 
 
 The trail then continued down the river to 
 Lower Shawnee town at the junction of the Scioto 
 with the Ohio. 
 
 From old Fort Minnis, at the junction of the 
 Maumee and Auglaize, this trail ran northwest 
 through Ohio and Indiana, branching just south of 
 St. Joseph river. The southern branch twisted 
 southward and led on to the Illinois river, and by 
 that stream to the mighty Mississippi. The 
 
 66 
 
Indian Communication 
 
 northern branch led in the shortest way to the 
 head of Lake Michigan, and from the time of the 
 Jesuits, to Fort Chicago. It rounded the lake, pas- 
 sing on its way the present site of Milwaukee; 
 thence bearing in a crooked, although northwester- 
 ly' direction, it pushed its way on to old Fort 
 Winnebago, on the Wisconsin river. This not on- 
 ly opened the way to the great unknown northwest, 
 but also to the better known and more hospitable 
 southwest, the Mississippi and all its branches, as 
 well as to the gulf countr3\ 
 
 From Fort Pitt east, the route was either by 
 "Xemacolin's Path," by Fort Bird, afterwards 
 "Redstone Old Fort," over the Laurel Hills, to 
 Fort Cumberland, at the head of canoe navigation 
 on the Potomac, the route that Washington fol- 
 lowed; or else b.v the old George Forbes road, past 
 the later Forts Ligonier, Bedford, Lyttleton and 
 London, and down the Susquehanna. 
 
 About half-wa}' between the Pennsylvania line 
 and Sandusk}^ and about half-way between Lake 
 Erie and the Muskingum Indian towns lay Portage 
 Path, the center of Indian communication; not 
 only for the "Ohio country," but for the great 
 west, the trans-Mississippi valley. It is best to 
 understand in the start that "the Ohio country" 
 furnished but three portages on "the Gulf to the 
 Great Lakes Route;" that of these three, the Port- 
 age Path was the most central, best known, the 
 easiest, shortest, driest; possessed more living 
 
 67 
 
Indian Communication 
 
 springs along its route, and more pleasant, secure 
 and dry camping grounds; also that it was ' the 
 country where beaver, deer and the elks keep," 
 was on its southern end, well lined with numerous 
 fresh water lakes, containing savory fish and in- 
 habited by aquatic fowl; was in fact a genuine 
 hunter's paradise. 
 
 The "carrying place" on the west was some 
 sixteen miles long, and almost every foot on low, 
 wet and swampy grounds; the rivers small and but 
 little known, the hunting poor, and the camping 
 grounds few and far between. Almost the same 
 objection would apply to "carrying place" on the 
 east, it being fifteen miles long, and but little 
 known except to the wild tribes of the Keystone 
 state; but the Portage Path with half the carrying 
 distance was every foot on dry and solid ground, 
 and reached nearly to the 41st degree of north lat- 
 titude, the "Water-shed" of the "Ohio Country, 
 around which clustered 64 fresh water lakes, many 
 of whose bottoms are lower than that of Lake Erie. 
 Less than half a day's travel by Indian runner, 
 from Portage Path, the Lake Shore trail crossed 
 the mouth of the Cuyahoga, giving communication 
 to Conneaut, Presque Isle, Buffalo Creek, Niagara 
 and all points east, and to Rocky river. Black 
 river, Sandusky, Detroit and all points west. A 
 day's travel by Indian runner from Portage Path 
 would communicate with all the Tuscarawas and 
 Muskingum towns, or over the central, east and 
 
 68 
 
Indian Communication 
 
 west trail with Fort Mcintosh and the Mahoning 
 and Beaver Valley towns, to the east, or with the 
 Sandusky plains to the west. Over the great Scio- 
 to war trail which started from the Portage Path 
 the Indian towns in Wa^me, Ashland and Richland 
 counties could have been reached in short order, 
 sweeping clean the Chippewa, Killbuck and Mo- 
 hican valle\'S. 
 
 In about equal distances from the central east 
 and west Indian trail which crossed the Cu3'ahoga 
 at the northern end of Portage Path, the Lake 
 shore trail crossed the mouth of the Cuyahoga, 
 while the southern east and west trail crossed the 
 Tuscarawas near Bolivar. Both of these rivers 
 take their source from the same locality — one runs 
 north, the other south, both, in a time beyond the 
 ken of man, were one river, running south and 
 emptying its waters into the Gulf. One of the 
 branches of the Cuyahoga has its head in Summit 
 Lake; this also is the source of one branch of the 
 Tuscarawas. Another branch of the Cuyahoga 
 has its head in Springfield Lake, seven hundred 
 feet above Lake Erie; still another takes its course 
 from Fritche's Lake, still another takes its course 
 from Whyoga Lake, truly a lake river as the In- 
 dians named it; rising in lakes, it flows through the 
 bed of an ancient geological lake, some twenty-five 
 miles long, and empties its waters in a lake. We 
 are thus particular on this point as it bears largely 
 on the aboriginal history of the country. These 
 
 69 
 
Indian Communication 
 
 rivers taken together, furnished the red races a 
 great water highway extending from Lake Erie to 
 the Gulf of Mexico. Over this portage came the 
 "Laughing Water" of the Massaugas and her 
 Irish lover to their death. The northern end of 
 Portage Path was for many 3'ears the scene of 
 great activity. At this point were built three of 
 Perr3''s war vessels that engaged the British dur- 
 ing the famous naval battle upon Lake Erie; here, 
 too, during the war of 1812 lay Gen, Wadsworth's 
 army of occupation and in pioneer times this was 
 the end of flat boat navigation on the "crooked 
 river." 
 
 Long before the Northwestern Territor}' took 
 form or shape Thomas Jefferson and George 
 Washington were deeply interested in building a 
 ship canal here to unite the Cuyahoga with the 
 Tuscarawas. The Portage Path was four times 
 made the subject of Indian treat}' and its lands 
 were three times paid for and it was three times 
 made the western boundary of the United States, 
 standing thus until 1805. This north and south 
 aboriginal highway was also the central one, con- 
 necting three east and west routes. The eastern 
 north and south trail ran from Presque Isle to the 
 Scioto River; the western north and south trail 
 ran from Sandusky to the Scioto. The central 
 north and south route connected with all the 
 others. It had a great land highwa}' leaving 
 Portage Path near its center, where Akron now 
 
 70 
 
Indian Communication 
 
 stands, and running i6o miles southwest connected 
 with the eastern route from Presque Isle, and the 
 western route from Sandusk3\ All of these trails 
 had their termini at Upper Shawnee Town on the 
 Scioto, thus completing a sj'^stem of three great 
 aboriginal highwas'S both east and west, north and 
 south, connected at regular intervals. 
 
 This S3'stem had four great centers; Pittsburg, 
 Portage Path, Sandusk}' and Upper Shawnee 
 Town. 
 
 Captain Pipe, the craft}-, the cruel; king of 
 New Portage, of the Wolf clan of the Delawares, 
 the whilom king of the entire Delaware nation, had 
 his chief village at the southern end of Portage 
 Path, between the different Indian trails and with- 
 in a few da^'s reach of an\" point or points of the 
 great aboriginal highway's in this grand S3'stem of 
 war trails by which the territory of seven states was 
 reached. 
 
 For some reason unknown, the Indian fighters 
 of colonial and pre-colonial days, as well as latter 
 da}' historians, have overlooked the importance of 
 the Cuyahoga valley as a prime factor in Indian 
 wars until as late as 1794. The Delawares came 
 into the valle}' as early as 1756. Chief 
 Xetawtwees with his tribe came from Kittanning, 
 Pa., in that year, and built his village on the north 
 bank of the Cuyahoga at "Big Falls." Previous 
 to this there was an Iroquois village on the south 
 bank, across the falls. Evan's map of 1755, 
 
 71 
 
Indian Communication 
 
 shows a Mingo, Ottawa and Seneca village on the 
 stream as well as a French trading house. But 
 long before this, the precipitous sides of the valley 
 were crowned with huge earthworks of many and 
 peculiar shapes. It is true that the square and 
 the circle and parallel walls were predominant 
 forms, 3'et, there were others, indefinable forms 
 which hemmed in inaccessible heights and pla- 
 teaus, narrow promontories putting out into the 
 valley. 
 
 Further up the river were pictured rocks, 
 which through the writings of Colonel Charles 
 Whittlesey have stirred the pulse of the scientific 
 world to a faster pace. Along the Portage Path, 
 and at both ends were Indian villages; while along 
 the trail were found pictured trees, yet seen at the 
 time of the original surve\\ This valley at one 
 time contained fully a thousand warriors; two 
 villages alone numbered five hundred. Compare 
 this with the earlj' population of any given point 
 within the limits of the Northwestern Territorjs 
 and 3'ou will at once see that with the exception of 
 "Fort Du Droit," it held the largest aboriginal 
 population to the square mile. August 7, 1757, 
 Treedyuscung, King of the Delaware nation, and 
 arbitrator of ten different tribes, at the close of a 
 treaty held at Easton, Pa., said to George 
 Croghan: "We have now finished; the treat}' is 
 over, peace is confirmed, and I told 3'ou that I 
 thought of going to Philadelphia, but upon con- 
 
Indian Communication 
 
 sidering the matter with more attention, I think it 
 will be more for the public service to proceed im- 
 mediately to Diahoga, and proclaim there to 
 nations still more distant the confirmation of the 
 peace with our brethren, the English. This will 
 take up three or four months." 
 
 Indian tribes pronounced Cuyahoga different- 
 I3'. The Delaware name for the river was 
 Diohoga. Fernow, in his second map, calls it 
 Diohoga. This map was published in 1754. In 
 his first map, published in 1684, seventy years 
 earlier, he calls it Kaj'ahoge. Hawkins in his 
 map of 1777, calls it Canahogue, while Bowen and 
 Gibson, in their map published in 1763, named it 
 Guahago. Evan's in 1755, Jeffries in 1758, 
 Hutchinson in 1764, and Andrews in 1783, all 
 name it "Cayahoga". 
 
 George Croghan in his journal bearing date 
 of July 19, 1757, says: "I understand it is the lake 
 Indians that are annoying the frontiers at present, 
 with perhaps one or two Delawares with each 
 party." Sir William Johnson, British Indian 
 agent for North America, at this time informed the 
 British Lords of Trade that the warriors of the 
 different nations were distributed as follows: 
 
 Michilmacinac — 
 
 Ottawas, 300 
 
 Chippewas, 320 
 
 Other tribes, 400 
 
 73 
 
Indian Communication 
 
 Scioto River and Branches — 
 
 Shawnees, 300 
 
 Susquehanna, Muskingum, Tuscarawas, 
 thence to Lake Erie — 
 
 Delawares, 600 
 
 Sandusky Fort, near Lake Erie — 
 Wyandots, 200 
 
 Detroit — 
 
 Wyandots, 400 
 
 Pottowattomies, 200 
 
 Ottawas, 300 
 
 This estimate of Johnson's falls over 6000 
 short, but he admits that there are many he has 
 not located. He makes no mention of the Chip- 
 pewas, Massaugas, Mingoes, Shawnees, Wyan- 
 dots, Ottawas, Senecas and Pottawattomies of the 
 Lake region. 
 
 Had the early whites thoroughh^ understood 
 this system of Indian highways with their various 
 centers of communication, the massacre of Mor- 
 avian Indians would never have occurred. The 
 Indian war of nearl3' 30 years bloody duration 
 would possibly have ended in two or three. Thou- 
 sands of valuable lives would have been saved to 
 their country and friends. Millions in property 
 would have been undestroyed; hundreds of cabin 
 homes and lonely hamlets would have remained 
 unburned; civilization would have come earlier in 
 the great Northwestern Territory, and the material 
 resources of the boundless west would have soon- 
 
 74 
 
Indian Communication 
 
 er budded, blossomed, and borne fruit, and our 
 history would not have been written in blood. 
 
 It is not generally known, but the British Par- 
 liament in 1774 passed an act making the Ohio 
 River the southwestern, and the Mississippi the 
 western boundary of Canada, attaching it to the 
 Province of Quebec; but for jurisdictional purpos- 
 es the territory was placed in charge of the Colony 
 of Virginia, its Royal Governor being Lord Dun- 
 more, who afterwards burned Norfolk, escaped to 
 an English ship and sailed across the sea. 
 
 From Portage Path, the Cuyahoga valley, 
 Pittsburg, Beaver, Fort Mcintosh, Fort Le Bceuf, 
 Detroit, Sandusky, Fort Miami, the Tuscarawas 
 and Muskingum towns, and upper and lower Shaw- 
 nee Towns, trails spread out, fan-like, to Indian 
 villages, secure retreats, choice hunting grounds, 
 fresh water lakes, and other local points; as manj'' 
 and as varied as the veins in the human bod3\ 
 
 General William Henry Harrison was the first 
 white man and Indian fighter who understood this 
 great system of communication. Ever^' stream 
 was a much prized highway, and the trails raa in 
 every direction. He proceeded accordingly. 
 Troops were stationed at Pittsburg and Beaver, 
 An army lay at the Falls of Maumee, at or niar 
 Sandusky, and at the northern terminus of Portage 
 Path. Thus the communication of the savages 
 was cut, their plans were disarranged, their high- 
 ways were shut, their secret fastnesses closed, 
 
 75 
 
Indian Communication 
 
 their ardor dampened. In this peculiar condition 
 of affairs they flew for protection to the frowning 
 walls of British fortresses, or sought refuge in 
 England's armies. They were cut off in detail, 
 not only whipped time and time again, but con- 
 quered, cowed, annihilated, so far as ever again 
 being a factor of evil in the Ohio valley. 
 
 All hail to Portage Path! great in the daj^s 
 which have gone b}', thj^ memories shall never die. 
 
 76 
 
«fp 
 
 Sljiliu- (<> .IdIiii Brown, of Ossow atoiiiit 
 on I'orliifjc I'iidi 
 
An Historic Path: A Movement to Mark 
 It in a Suitable Manner is Started 
 
 Closely following my appeal to the honor of 
 Summit Count}^ citizens, published in the Akron 
 ''Daily Beacon- Journal,'" under date of Nov. 
 28, 1903, that same Journal published, under the 
 above heading, the following article which by per- 
 mission I reproduce here: 
 
 "A conference between Count}^ Surveyor J. A. 
 Gehres and City Engineer Payne was held 
 Wednesday morning after other county officials 
 had been consulted, and it was definitely decided 
 that steps should be taken to ask the state legis- 
 lature, through Representative Wm.Buchtel,to ap- 
 propriate mone}^ for a complete survey of Portage 
 Path, and to erect monuments and markers along 
 the famous route." 
 
 "There was some talk of having the work 
 done b\^ local support, but it was decided that in- 
 asmuch as the path is not only of local and state 
 importance, but also has a national significance, 
 state aid at least should be asked to establish the 
 lines of the historical route, and to place proper 
 monuments at conspicuous points along the road. 
 It has been estimated by County Survej'or Gehres 
 
 77 
 
An Historic Path 
 
 and others interested in the project that $2,500 
 will be sufficent to cover the expense of the surve}'' 
 and to suppl}' the monuments. It is proposed to 
 ask power to surve}^ the road its entire length 
 and to establish its lines and mark them so that 
 they will ever be distinguishable." 
 
 "The plan contemplates the erection of pro- 
 bably seven life-size statues of Indians, to be 
 located at the following points: three in Perkins 
 Park, one on West Market street, one near Sum- 
 mit lake, and one at each end of the path." 
 
 "The path begins at a point on the Cuyahoga 
 river near Old Portage, and continues southeast- 
 wardly through the western and southwestern 
 parts of the city to a point near the canal feeder 
 near Long lake. A road follows the path nearly 
 the entire length, but in a general direction only. 
 
 It will not be difficult to outline the exact 
 boundary of the path, and it should be done be- 
 cause of the local and national significance of the 
 route, as followed by the American Indians for 
 3'ears before the whites came into the country. 
 The line was at one time the western boundary of 
 the United Stales; an iron sign on West Market 
 indicates that fact. For this reason should the 
 state refuse to donate the amount required, it is 
 felt that Congress should appropriate the required 
 amount. 
 
 The state will be asked to make the appropri- 
 ation, however, without much doubt. It has also 
 
An Historic Path 
 
 been suggested that the historical societies of the 
 country would willingly donate a sufficient sum 
 were they apprised of the importance of the route." 
 
 "Col. George T. Perkins is known to be very 
 much in favor of the scheme, especially as it will 
 give added interest to the magnificent park that he 
 has given to the cit3^ As the path passes through 
 the park, it is proper that it especiall)' be desig- 
 nated there, and this much of the work will be 
 done at least." 
 
 Surveyor Gehres has been making some 
 surveys, already along the path so far as it relates 
 to Perkins park, and it was this action that started 
 the movement to mark the entire path.' " 
 
 "Speaking of the project to erect monuments 
 along Portage path, Senator Dick said before his 
 departure for Washington, Wednesday: 'l think 
 the scheme is a good one and believe the state 
 ought to make a small appropriation for the 
 purpose." 
 
 "it is understood that the county commission- 
 ers promised to pay half of the expense of the 
 surve3% if the city directors of public safety would 
 pay the other half. The latter board, however, 
 felt that, under the present financial circumstances, 
 they could not well afford to appropriate mone^^ 
 for the purpose. Then it was decided to ask state 
 aid for the project." 
 
 Like many other popular movements where 
 attempts are made to freeze out those most in- 
 
 79 
 
An Historic Path 
 
 tensely interested in the work, this movement 
 ended in hot air and smoke; it is now up to the 
 Chamber of Commerce to take it in hand and see 
 what it can do. 
 
 The affair culminated in Mr. G. F. Kasch, 
 and the Daughters of the American Revolution 
 taking up the work and erecting an Indian statue 
 on Portage Path at West Market Street. The 
 result of their labors is given in the next chapter. 
 
 80 
 
I 
 
 y 
 
 Stjilii.' to Mark Porlnjio I'ntli ^\■.■sl .Nrarket 
 Strc«'t, Akron, Ohio. 
 Coiir«€sv €.f <i. |-. I<„>, ll 
 
Statue to Mark Portage Path Dedicated 
 Tuesday Afternoon, July 4, 1905 
 
 Services were Lmpressive and 
 Largely Attended 
 
 Under the above caption the Akron ^^ Daily 
 Beacon-Journar' of July 5, 1905, published the 
 following, which b_v permission we copy. 
 
 "With services that were impressive the hand- 
 some statue, presented to the citybyGus F, Kasch, 
 to perpetuate the memor}' of the trail used b}^ In- 
 ians in making the "big portage" in their trips from 
 the waters of the north to those of the south, was 
 unveiled and dedicated Tuesday. The exercises 
 were in charge of the Daughters of the American 
 Revolution. This mark, the first of its kind to 
 be erected in Summit county, will be followed by 
 several other similar shafts to be placed in various 
 parts of the count}' to keep fresh in the minds of 
 the people of the present and future generations 
 the more important phases connected with the 
 building up of Summit count}'." 
 
 "Ex-Mayor W. B. Doyle was chairman of 
 the day and seated beside him on the platform 
 were veterans of the civil war, descendants of the 
 
Statue Dedicated 
 
 men who fought in the Revolutionary war, and 
 other distinguished persons representing almost 
 ever^^ walk in life." 
 
 "Soon after the dedicatory services started, 
 Mrs. A. E. Heintselman, Regent of Portage Chap- 
 ter, Daughters of the American Revolution, was 
 introduced b3' Mr. Doyle and after delivering a 
 brief sketch of the Portage Path the white covering 
 was drawn from the statue amid the cheers of the 
 entire crowd." 
 
 "Following the unveiling of the statue. Mayor 
 Kempel in a short speech bespoke the appreciation 
 of the citizens of Akron and in their behalf accept- 
 ed the gift. 'It is with more than passing interest 
 that we are gathered here today to mark the loca- 
 tion of the path used bj^ the aborigine in his long 
 overland travels,' said Mayor Kempel. 'This 
 path, the place where we now stand, was the con- 
 necting link between the waters of the Gulf of St. 
 Lawrence and the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, 
 and in accepting this gift which means so much to 
 the people of Akron and of Ohio, I have to thank 
 the generous donor Mr. Gus F. Kaschwho in mak- 
 ing this presentation is happy in the idea that he 
 is commemorating what he considers and what is 
 an important part of the earl)' history of Ohio.' 
 
 'It might be well at this time to look back 
 and see what the unveiling of this statue recalls. 
 Before the visionary Columbus had realized the 
 ambition of his life this path was the main artery 
 
 82 
 
Statue Dedicated 
 
 between the North and South. Along its length 
 the Indian carried the simple belongings used in 
 the commerce of that day. To the red man who 
 preceded us, Portage Path was as important a fac- 
 tor in the life of those daj'^s as are our railroads to- 
 da3'. Portage Path is the dividing line between 
 the long ago and toda3^ and it is with great pleas- 
 ure and honor that I accept this statue in behalf of 
 the citizens of Akron.' " 
 
 "Ma3'or Kempel was followed b}' T. C. Rey- 
 nolds who was appointed by Gov. Herrick to rep- 
 resent the state at this dedication and who, after 
 a brief historical sketch of the Portage Path, ac- 
 cepted the statue in behalf of the Governor and the 
 State. Senator Chas. Dick also spoke at some 
 length, as well as others. Gus Kasch, the giver of 
 this work of art, spoke a few Avords thanking the 
 people for the aid they had given him in the dedi- 
 cation. 
 
 About lOo feet from the Indian statue an old 
 school house once stood, in which S. A. Lane was 
 once a teacher. This was in the years 1835 — 6. 
 But few of the present generation remember the 
 historic old building, but about a dozen of the old- 
 est residents of the county saj' that the}'' remember 
 the edifice well. It was built of rough hewn logs 
 and stood on the spot many years. It was torn 
 down over 50 years ago. 
 
 We understand that the "Daughters of the 
 American Revolution", have appointed a committee 
 
 83 
 
Statue Dedicated 
 
 to put up another momument to mark Portage 
 Path this coming summer, 1911. The interest these 
 ladies'have manifested in historical matters is to be 
 heartily commended, and far exceeds that of their 
 "lords and masters". This is largely due to the 
 fact that the purest blood of Revolutionary sires 
 courses through their viens, making of them the 
 best ladies, as well as the most patriotic body in 
 the city. 
 
 In absence of Mrs. Chas. Knight from the cit}^ 
 we are unable to obtain further particulars, but 
 understand that the monument in question is to be 
 a huge boulder, with a proper marker to match; so 
 Mrs. E. C. Allen informs us, and this in turn is 
 verified by Mrs. Mayor Sawyer. 
 
 All honor to the ladies, the Daughters of the 
 American Revolution! 
 
 The writer has been endeavorimg to raise 
 funds to erect at the southern terminus of Portage 
 Path, a life-sized, bronze statue of an Indian 
 entitled: "Watching for the Coming White Man." 
 
 84 
 
T.i([l<- Miiry C".;imi)bt>II, the First White 
 Keniale on Path 
 
The Story of Mary Campbell, the First 
 White Female on the Portage Path. 
 
 Among the prisoners delivered to Col. Bou- 
 quet at his headquarters on the Tuscarawas river- 
 in the fall of 1764, were a Mrs. Stuart and her 
 companion, little 12 }'ear old Mary Campbell. 
 
 These, so far as is known, were the only 
 white prisoners held by the Indians in the territor}' 
 now included in Summit count3\ 
 
 The storj^ of these lonely waifs so far from 
 people of their own color is but one of many in the 
 annals of the border warfare of that day. The 
 great number of white prisoners held at that time 
 b\' the Indians can best be estimated b}^ the 
 number delivered to Bouquet but 25 miles be- 
 low the south line of the Western Reserve. The 
 records show that he received 49 males, and 
 64 females belonging to Pennsylvania, with 32 
 males and 58 females belonging to Virginia, a total 
 of 206; plus 150 more afterward delivered at Fort 
 Pitt, making a total of 356 captives held in but a 
 small portion of the state. 
 
 In the fall of 1759, shortl}' after the signing 
 of the Crogan treaty of that year, the Delaware 
 
Story of Mary Campbell 
 
 Chieftain and King of the Wolf clans, Netawat- 
 wees, and his warriors, after a prolonged pow-wow 
 in their village near Kittanning, struck the painted 
 post and in all the rude panoply of war-paint and 
 feathers, marched forth against the scattered white 
 settlements on the Susquehanna. Among the out- 
 l3'ing lonely hamlets in this beautiful valle}' was 
 an isolated cab'in occupied jointly by two families; 
 one by the name of Campbell consisting of the 
 father and daughter Mary, the other consisting of 
 Mr. Stuart, his wife and four children. For some 
 time nothing had arisen to alarm the lonel}'' set- 
 tlers, and in the morning in question, the two men 
 after eating their breakfast, departed to their labor, 
 not knowing that every motion was shadowed by a 
 savage and relentless foe. 
 
 After the morning's work was finished Mrs. 
 Stuart who had an errand at their nearest neigh- 
 bors, several miles distant, left her children in the 
 care of little Mary Campbell and departed on her 
 journey'. Some time after the woman's departure 
 the Indians, much to the alarm of the children, 
 took possession of the cabin, waiting for the re- 
 turn of some of the adults. Little Mary, although 
 too young to understand the full import of the pro- 
 ceeding, was ver}' much frightened and kept the 
 huddled children near her in one corner of the room. 
 While waiting, the Indians ransacked the house 
 and made up their bags of plunder. 
 
 Upon the return of Mrs. Stuart from her 
 
 86 
 
Story of Mary Campbell 
 
 neighbors she heard the screaming of her frightened 
 children long before she reached the cabin. Start- 
 ing on a run she was horrified upon opening the 
 dour to find the room filled with savages. She was 
 instantly made a prisoner, and hurried prepara- 
 tions were immediatel}' begun for departure. The 
 younger children were divided among their captors 
 who made off with them and their plunder on their 
 backs; Mrs. Stuart carr3ang the infant which was 
 fretful and hard to be kept quiet. The savages 
 convinced that it retarded their flight, in spite of 
 the woman's intreaties, took it from her arms, and 
 in the presence of the shrieking mother, dashed its 
 brains out against a tree and threw its yet quiver- 
 ing bod}^ into the bushes besides the path and in- 
 creased their speed, urging their tired, alarmed 
 and grief-stricken captives to their best pace. 
 Among the prisoners was Sammy Stuart, a little 
 7 year old boj', who found it difficult to keep up 
 with the others, and was frequently carried on the 
 back of the Indian to whom he was assigned. On 
 the third day out from the cabin, the savage who 
 was carrying little Sammy dropped behind the 
 others but soon reappeared alone, with a fresh 
 scalp hanging at his belt which the frantic mother 
 recognized as that of her little son. There was no 
 time for grief, as the savages were continually nag- 
 ging their captives to a greater speed by frequent 
 use of blows and threats. 
 
 87 
 
Story of Mary Campbell 
 
 Arriving at the Indian village the famil}- was 
 separated. All of the children, except Mary were 
 taken to other villages, and upon the expulsion of 
 the Delawares from Penns3'lvania valley's in 1759- 
 60, Netawatwees and his tribe, with Mrs. Stuart 
 and Mary Campbell, moved to the Cuyahoga val- 
 ley, settling at the Big Falls of the Cuyahoga, 
 Hopocan, as the Indians called it. Mar}^ Camp- 
 bell's first home in the "Ohio countr}'," was in 
 the "Old Maid's Kitchen," where the squaws and 
 pappooses were temporaril}^ domiciled, until the 
 village could be built. This spot, for a time long 
 unknown had been the site of an Indian village. 
 Previous to 1650, the Eries, that little known and 
 very mysterious race, had a village here. After 
 their massacre and dispersion as a race b}' the 
 combined Five Nations, the Iroquois built a vil- 
 lage on the south side of the river; a little later, 
 Netawatwees erected his village on the north bank. 
 As far back as is known, the plain of North Hill 
 was without signs of ancient forest growth. The 
 entire plain, as well as certain points of the Cuy- 
 ahoga valle}', was used by the Indians as corn 
 fields. 
 
 When first seen by the whites the North Hill 
 was a green oasis of a waist-high, waving mass of 
 variegated wild flowers, beautiful beyond compar- 
 ison, hemmed in and around b}' gigantic trees of 
 an ancient forest growth. It was here that little 
 Mary Campbell hoed corn 72 j'ears before Akron 
 
 88 
 
Story of Mary Campbell 
 
 became a village. She had been adopted by the 
 King of all the Delaware tribes in the "Ohio 
 countr}'," and was kindly treated. She spent 
 much of her time at the northern terminus of 
 "Portage Path," fishing, nutting, and gathering 
 berries, and as far as is known was the hrst white 
 female ever on or near the historic path. 
 
 Not onl_v this, but as far as is known, Mrs. 
 Stuart and Mar}' Campbell were the first female 
 captives within the limits of the Western Reserve. 
 
 During the winter of 1755, Col. James Smith 
 was held a captive at the Falls of Elyria. In mak- 
 ing his escape he made his way through Medina 
 Count}' and] presumably along the Central San- 
 dusky and Fort Pitt Indian Trail, crossing the 
 northern part of Portage Path at Old Portage. 
 
 John Brickell, who was taken captive by the 
 Indians in Pennsylvania, in 1791, also, undoubt- 
 edly, came over Portage Path, on his way to the 
 Delaware Indian Tuscarawas towns, in charge of 
 Simon Girty. Mr. Brickell afterwards built and 
 owned a residence directlv opposite where the 
 Ohio Penitentiary now stands. 
 
 The year that first saw Mrs. Stuart and Marj' 
 Campbell prisoners also brought that great histor- 
 ical figure, Pontiac, prominently before the Amer- 
 ican people. His camp, further down the Cuya- 
 hoga, was known to the borderers as "Ponty's 
 Camp," and became a great historical landmark. 
 Major Rogers with 200 British soldiers were at 
 
 89 
 
Story of Mary Campbell 
 
 that time camped on the Cu3'ahoga. 
 
 In 1764, Mary Campbell was turned over to 
 Gen. Bouquet, on the Tuscarawas, and was re- 
 turned to her Pennsylvania home where she was 
 afterwards married to Joseph Wilford, in the j^ear 
 1771. She afterwards resided in Cumberland 
 county, Pennsylvania, where she raised a large 
 family of children. Her son became one of the 
 earliest pioneers of Stark county, and his son, her 
 grandchild, afterwards became a member of the 
 Ohio Legislature, from Wayne county. He was 
 named after his grandfather, Joseph Wilford. 
 
 90 
 
The Building of Pcrr3"'s Vessels, 1812 
 
 These three vessels were built at the northern 
 end of Portage Path, at Old Portage, by the 
 United States, thus making this point the first 
 navy yard in Ohio. 
 
 In the month of January, 1813, the Navy 
 Department of the United States found it necessary 
 to build three small vessels to be used as gun- 
 boats on Lake Erie. It was discovered by Capt. 
 Perry that small vessels, being more easily and 
 rapidly worked, could do effective service in a close 
 contest. 
 
 The contract for building the boats was 
 awarded to Brimel Robins, of Alleghanj^ count}', 
 Pa. He selected Old Portage, on the Cu^-ahoga 
 river, as the place to build them. The timber and 
 lumber was furnished by Captains Rice and 
 Stowe, and was sawed in the mill of Francis and 
 Zenas Kelse}' at "Old Cuyahoga village." Stew- 
 art Ga^'lord superintended the boat 3'ard. In 
 June the three gunboats were launched and named 
 "Trippe", "Tigress" and "Portage." The latter 
 boat was afterwards re-named "The Porcupine," 
 from the fact that one of the men emploj^ed in their 
 building and in floating them down to Cleveland, 
 
 91 
 
Perry's Vessels 
 
 killed a porcupine and threw it on the deck of the 
 "Portage." This animal was unknown to many 
 of the men, who viewed it with great curiosity, 
 and then, and there, re-named their boat "The 
 Porcupine." Wm, Coggswell, the pioneer of. 
 Granger township, was the young man. Of this 
 trip he said: "l was employed with others to 
 float them down to the Lake, with instructions 
 that when we got to the "Piner}^" (near 
 Peninsula) we should furnish each boat with masts 
 and spars. At the "Pinery" we were detained 
 several da3's in procuring the necessary rigging 
 for the boats. At that place I killed a porcupine 
 which was looked upon as an animal of great 
 curiosity by our small crew. When we got to 
 Cleveland, the gunboats were examined by many, 
 and the general opinion was that they were the 
 kind needed." 
 
 Cleveland at that time was but a small village 
 of less than 175 inhabitants. 
 
 These boats at once went into commission 
 and did good service during the battle of Lake 
 Erie, Good old Summit oak, built in Summit 
 county, helped to whip the British. 
 
 In the first line of battle these boats were on 
 the extreme right. In the second battle position, 
 these boats had forged ahead to the center; the 
 Trippe occupying the most advanced position of 
 any of Perry's fleet. 
 
 92 
 
TIk- H.c-nnii.cJ >S r<)il:i.<- Vr'h. \V'.-sl 
 ]<iv<-r iiimI Ciiiiiil. Nu'lli l';iul 
 
Perry's Vessels 
 
 At the close of the battle, the "Porcupine" 
 had traversed the whole line of battle and was 
 found on the extreme left, opposing the British 
 "Lady Prevost." "The Tigress" was near the 
 center confronting the British "Little Belt." "The 
 Trippe" was well advanced beyond the outer lines 
 in pursuit of the British vessels "Hunter" and 
 "Chippewa." Besides these two vessels, Capt 
 Holdup, assisted by the "Scorpion," chased 
 "Little Belt" and her consort "Chippewa", which 
 had turned tail and were running away, and 
 captured them, the "Trippe" bringing in the 
 "Chippewa" unaided. 
 
 While these vessels were building at "Old 
 Portage" and during the time Gen. Wadsworth's 
 army of occupation lay at this point, it was a very 
 busy place; as many as one hundred teams loaded 
 and unloaded here each day. All the supplies 
 used by Gen. Perkins at Camp Avery, and by Gen. 
 Meigs at Fort Meigs, were boated here from 
 Cleveland, and shipped overland over the new 
 military road cut through to the Huron river. 
 
 The first saloon in Summit county was located 
 on the Portage Path at this place. It was con- 
 ducted by a Frenchman with an Indian wife. He 
 also ran a trading post, and the majority of his 
 custom was among the Indians, whom he got full 
 and then watered his whiskey. When they had 
 drunk themselves sober the_v would say "Indian 
 
 93 
 
Perry's Vessels 
 
 get too much Cuj^ahog — ugh!" Then he would 
 have to reverse the dose and give them more 
 whiskey and less water. 
 
 94 
 
New Portage as An Early River Port. 
 
 Thomas Jefferson in his "Notes of the State 
 of Virginia" written in 1781, says: — The "Mus- 
 kingum is 280 yards wide at its mouth, and 200 
 j'^ards at the lower Indian towns, 150 miles up- 
 wards. It navigable for small batteaux to withiti 
 one mile of a fiavi£-al>Ie fart of CiiyaJio^a river 
 which runs tnto Lake Erie." The commencement 
 of the portage on the Cuyahoga, was called "Old 
 Portage." 
 
 In the "Ordinance of Freedom," or the Ordi- 
 nance of 1787, the Congress of the United States 
 said, "The navigable waters leading into the 
 Mississippi and St. Lawrence, and the carrying 
 places between the same, shall be common high- 
 ways, and forever free, as well to the inhabitants 
 of the said territory as to the citizens of the United 
 States." 
 
 Capt. Thomas Hutchins, in a publication 
 published in London, in 1788, mentions among 
 the "carrying places between the Ohio and Lake 
 Erie, "From Muskingum to Cayahoga, is the 
 best portage between the Ohio and Lake Erie." 
 
 95 
 
Early River Port 
 
 Evan's map, published in 1755, gives the 
 "Caj'ahoga" river, the "Portage," and a stream 
 designed for the Tuscarawas. 
 
 The Indians had used this "Portage," and 
 these rivers as, a highwa}' for many years. This 
 was the treaty line made with Indians at Fort Mc- 
 intosh in 1785, also confirmed at a later date at 
 the treat}" of Greenville. It was thus made the 
 western boundar}^ between the United States and 
 the Indian nations. 
 
 Tallmadge Mills, or Middlebury as it was 
 afterward called, now "East Akron," or "Sixth 
 Ward," was the only trading place for man}" miles 
 around the "Portage." Goods for this place were 
 shipped there in the early days b\" the way of the 
 Cuyahoga to "Old Portage," or b}' the Avay of the 
 Muskingum and Tuscarawas to "New Portage." 
 and from thence to Middlebury by teams. "These 
 boats were long, narrow vessels, frequently "dug- 
 outs" as the.y were called. They were from twenty 
 to forty feet long, and from three to five feet and 
 were propelled by poles while going against the 
 current. Their capacity was from ten to twelve 
 barrels of pork, salt, flour or whisk5\ Salt sold in 
 those days for twenty dollars per barrel, while a 
 barrel of whisky could be bought for about five dol- 
 lars, or even less, if the barrels were returned. 
 
 In 1819, William W. Laird built himself a 
 cabin on the banks of the Tuscarawas at "New 
 Portage," and began the construction of flat-boats, 
 
 96 
 
Early River Port 
 
 to run on the river. These boats were loaded 
 with all kinds of produce and consigned to New 
 Orleans, without breaking bulk. They passed 
 down the Tuscarawas into the Muskingum, thence 
 into the Ohio and Mississippi, and after a journey 
 of some two months reached their destination. 
 
 Henry Chittenden, of Springfield, Abram 
 Norton of Middlebury, and Philander Adams, of 
 Tallmadge afterwards became contractors and 
 speculators in the produce of the country, which 
 they bought of the farmers all over the country 
 and hauled to "New Portage" and shipped on 
 Laird's boats to New Orleans. This seems almost 
 incredible to those who know the insignificant size 
 of the river at this point. But such was the case, 
 as we learn from old people, who still remember 
 this river as a turbulent stream, which, at certain 
 seasons, was impossible to ford, and which at all 
 times was a goodly stream. After the canal was 
 cut through, the river dwindled to its present size. 
 Now, however, have "the mighty fallen," and the 
 school-bo3'S wade across its bed, or catch the min- 
 ows which sport in its shallow waters. 
 
 This is the history of the starting and the open- 
 ing of "New Portage" as a Port. To-day, even 
 New Portage is gone, and will soon not be known 
 under that name as it has now moved westward 
 and taken on town airs and has become part of the 
 corporation of Barberton. 
 
 97 
 
Why the Lands West of Portage Path Did 
 
 Not Become Part of the United 
 
 States Until 1805 
 
 Sir Wm. Johnson's steal of 40,000 acres of 
 Indian lands was bolstered up b}' the treaty of 
 Fort Stanwix, November, 1768, The importance 
 of this and its material benefit to Ohio history has 
 been much overlooked by national and state his- 
 torians. The line thus fixed by the Six Nations, 
 as far as our state was concerned, was the last 
 treaty made by the English. 
 
 The absurdity of some treaties made by Great 
 Britain is shown by the treaty at Albany, July 19, 
 1701, between Sir Wm. Johnson and the Five 
 Nations. We give an extract, spelling, capitali- 
 zation and all: 
 
 "A tract of land lyeing between the great lake 
 Ottowawa (Huron) and the lake called by the na- 
 tives Sahiquage, and by the Christians Swege 
 (Erie) and runnstill it butts upon the Twichtwichs 
 and is bounded on the right hand by a place called, 
 Quadoge (head of Lake Michigan, Chicago) conte- 
 gning in length about 800 miles and in bredth 400 
 miles including the country where the beavers, the 
 
 98 
 
Part of the United States 
 
 deers, and elks keep (Ohio.)" This shows that 
 poor Lo was not above deeding land that did not 
 belong to him. This created such a furore among 
 the western tribes that England was glad to let 
 the matter drop. This was no more a treat}^ than 
 was Lord Dunmore's so-called treat}' in November, 
 1774, at Camp Charlotte, O. Before a treaty 
 could be made he had burned Norfolk Va., with 
 all its militar}^ stores and shipping, and was on his 
 way across the ocean to his royal master. 
 
 Connecticut surrendered her claim to all Ohio 
 territory south of the 41st degree of latitude, and 
 west of a line 120 miles from the west line of Penn- 
 sylvania, in the month of September, 1786. In 
 January, 1785, the treat}^ of Fort Mcintosh made 
 the western boundary line of the United States, 
 which the Fort Stanwix treat}' had fixed, move 
 westward to the Cuyahoga and Tuscarawas rivers 
 and the Portage Path. Congress was under the 
 delusion that it had acquired the Indian title and 
 full dominion of all the lands between this line and 
 the Ohio river. This was the occasion of a re- 
 monstrance sent Congress by the Council of the 
 confederate Indian Tribes of Ohio, from their seat 
 of power, near Toledo, a section of which reads as 
 follows: 
 
 "in their opinion the first step should be that 
 all treaties on their part, carried on with the United 
 States, should be with the general voice of the 
 whole confederacy, and in the most open manner, 
 
 99 
 
Part of the United States 
 
 without any restraint on either side; and as land 
 matters are often the subject of our councils with 
 you, and a matter of the greatest importance of 
 general concern to us, in this case we hold it in- 
 dispensably necessary that any cession of our lands 
 should be made in the most public manner, and 
 by the united voice of the confederac}': holding all 
 partial treaties as void and of no effect." 
 
 We think the mischief and confusion which 
 has followed is owing to your having managed 
 everything respecting us in your own way. You 
 kindled your council fires where 3'ou thought prop- 
 er, without consulting us, at which you held sep- 
 arate treaties, and have entirely neglected our plan 
 of having a general conference with the different 
 nations of the confederac5\ Had this happened, 
 we have reason to believe everything would have 
 been settled between us in a most friendl}' manner. 
 We wish, therefore, you would take it into serious 
 consideration and let us speak to you in the man- 
 ner we proposed. Let us have a treat}' with 3'ou 
 early in the spring. We say let us meet half-wa}', 
 and let us pursue such steps as become upright 
 and honest men. We beg that 3'ou will prevent 
 your surveyors and other people from coming on 
 our side of the Ohio river." 
 
 Words of truth and wisdom! And yet Con- 
 gress was mute. The people of a great nation, of 
 a Christian land, wished to deal with these people 
 by force and fraud and chicanery. An open, hon- 
 
A Portage Fsilh liiiliaii, Ootinutx. Indijiii 
 (^liicf unci C'atliolio PrioMt 
 
Part of tlie United States 
 
 est wa3'- was to be avoided on the principle that 
 one stick was more easily broken than a bundle of 
 them; in union there was strength. Indeed Gen- 
 eral St. Clair admitted this when writing to the 
 President of the United States; he says: "The 
 reason why the treat}^ (Fort Harmar) was made 
 separately was a jealous}^ between them, which I 
 was not willing to lessen by appearing to consider 
 them as one people." 
 
 Such were the tactics used b}^ our forefathers 
 to cheat Lo out of his inheritance. 
 
 A year after the Fort Mcintosh treaty, or in 
 Januar}^ 1786, the treaty of Fort Finney indorsed 
 the Cu3'ahoga Portage Path line. So did the 
 treat}' of Fort Harmar of January, 1789. In ad- 
 dition to this, the line was endorsed by two treaties 
 not known in history. The first was between 50 
 Indian chiefs and Moses Cleveland in June, 1796, 
 in Buffalo, N, Y. The second was at Conneaut, 
 Ohio, in July, 1796, between the same agent of 
 the Connecticut Land Company and Indians of 
 Ohio. The three former were made by govern- 
 ment officers appointed and sanctioned by Con- 
 gress and afterwards approved by same authority. 
 
 England had no rights to any territory west of 
 the Scioto, and very doubtful ones to any west of 
 the Ohio. She had never secured such rights by 
 either conquest, treaty or purchase; so said Gener- 
 al William Henry Harrison, in 1839, and a better 
 authority did not exist. The Hon. Rufus King 
 
Part of the United States 
 
 said: "England had not planted the American col- 
 onies, and had no proprietorship or right in the 
 land they took. They were the work of men who 
 had individually or b}' companies been left b}^ the 
 English government to find territory and make a 
 country for themselves." 
 
 During the war of the Revolution there was an- 
 other war west of the Alleghenies, not sanctioned 
 b}' governmental proclamation, not aided b}' gov- 
 ernmental troops, or supplies, or arms, or treasure. 
 An isolated people, they were left to go it alone, 
 and "sink or swim, survive or perish," as the case 
 might be, and yet, there was mere blood spilled, 
 more lives lost, more treasure wasted and more 
 suffering endured than by the thirteen colonies 
 during their entire eight year's struggle. The 
 "Ohio country" was born in a baptism of blood 
 and fire; the darkness of night was lighted by burn- 
 ing homes, and shocked by the shrieks of outraged 
 womanhood, the screams of childish despair, the 
 crack of the rifle, the swish of fl^'ing tomahawks, 
 the yell of defiance and the moans of dj^ing man- 
 hood. 
 
 The proprietary rights in this land belonged to 
 nobody on earth except the Ohio Indian nations; 
 theirs were the primary rights, the_v were indige- 
 nous to the soil; France, England and the United 
 States could form no national boundary lines in 
 this land without the consent or conquest of these 
 "sons of the soil." The only earthly rights the 
 
 1 02 
 
Part of the United States 
 
 first mentioned countries could claim were political 
 rights and these were of very equivocal value. 
 The Hon. J. Fenimore Cooper, the best authority 
 on land titles ever in the United States, says: 
 "We white people can ver}' well understand that a 
 humane government, which professes, on the 
 principles recognized by civilized nations, to have 
 jurisdiction over certain extensive territories that 
 lie in the virgin forest, and which are used only, 
 and that occasionally, by certain savage tribes as 
 hunting grounds, should deem it right to satisfy 
 those tribes by purchase before the)' parceled out 
 their lands for the purpose of civilized life; but it 
 would not be so easy to make an unsophisticated 
 mind understand that there could be two owners to 
 the same property'. " 
 
 The anti-rent war of New York proved the 
 greed and unscrupulousness of white men in regard 
 to land titles. Because a man had paid a very 
 nominal rent for land for a number of 3'ears, had 
 improved the propert}', it was claimed by the anti- 
 renters that the owner of the soil had no rights to 
 the land which he had bought and paid for after 
 quieting the Indian title, except such rights as 
 they, the renters, were willing to concede. 
 
 France claimed territory west of the Ohio 
 river, not by conquest nor by purchase, but simply 
 by the right of discovery; yet she maintained 
 armed posts in spite of England and English laws 
 until wrested from them by General George Rogers 
 
 103 
 
Part of the United States 
 
 Clark, not for England, not for the United States, 
 but for the struggling pioneers west of the Alle- 
 ghanies. Although France had ceded her paper 
 rights to England at the treaty of Paris in 1763, 
 3'et, the lilies of France still floated over her armed 
 posts in the Illinois country and St. Louis until 
 1778, and at Detroit until 1780. Although Eng- 
 land had ceded her paper rights to the United 
 States at the treaty of Paris in 1783, yet the ro5'al 
 standard of England floated over armed English 
 posts in Ohio until the war of 1812. So much 
 for paper rights. 
 
 Col. Chas. Whittlesey, late president of the 
 Northern Ohio and Western Reserve Historical 
 society, has stated: "The land west of the 
 Cuyahoga and Tuscarawas rivers and Portage 
 Path was held in 1788 by the Indians and the 
 British." 
 
 Congress of the United States, in 1787, 
 affirmed that "the utmost good faith shall always 
 be observed towards the Indians; their lands and 
 property shall never be taken from them without 
 their consent." 
 
 In 1801 the citizens of the Western Reserve, 
 east of the Cuyahoga, petitioned congress to be 
 taken into the United States, which was granted. 
 
 England inherited the paper rights of France, 
 and in her last treaty with the North American 
 savages, at the first treaty of Fort Stanwix, in 
 1768, made the western boundary of her domain 
 
 104 
 
Part of the United States 
 
 the Ohio river. In 1774, six years later, the 
 English Parliament made the Ohio river her south- 
 western boundary; nine 3'ears later she ceded her 
 paper rights to the United States, whose congress, 
 four years later, declared that the Indians' land 
 should never be taken from them without their 
 consent. 
 
 Indian treaties made at the second treaty at 
 Fort Stanwix, in 1784, relinquished onl}^ the 
 claim of the Six Nations to the Ohio valley; this 
 was followed bj'' the treaty of Fort Mcintosh in 
 1785, Fort Finney in 1786 and Fort Harmar in 
 1789, the treaties at Buffalo, N. Y., and Conneaut, 
 Ohio, in 1796, which relinquished the Indian title 
 to all lands east of the Cuyahoga, which were paid 
 for three separate times. These treaties were ac- 
 cepted and confirmed bj^ the congress of the United 
 States, which made it felony for whites to settle 
 on land west of the Cuj'ahoga, punishable b}' heavy 
 penalties. 
 
 The consequence of this was that the lands 
 west of Portage Path did not become a part of the 
 United States until after the treaty of Fort 
 Industry, in 1805, bj' the terms of which treaty 
 the Indians were paid the sum of $10,000; $6,000 
 in coin and $4,000 in merchandise. Settlers, 
 however, were not allowed to purchase land until 
 1807. The Connecticut Land Company com- 
 menced its survey of its lands west of the 
 Cuyahoga in 1806, but did not finish until early in 
 
 105 
 
Part of the United States 
 
 1807. The United States, not satisfied with its 
 survey of the 41st meridian of north latitude, re- 
 surveyed that parallel as well as the western line 
 of the Western Reserve and that of the Con- 
 necticut Fire lands. This was completed in 1807 
 and settlers admitted. 
 
 106 
 
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