Transcriber’s Note

This is a 1971 reprint edition of the 1895 edition of “Chronicles of Border Warfare.” The modern title page and verso have been relocated to the end of the text.

The 1895 edition includes and expands on the original 1831 edition. Throughout this text, the pagination of the original edition is indicated by brackets, such as [54].

Capitalization standards for the time (i.e. “fort Morgan,” “mrs. Pindall,” “Ohio river”) have been preserved.

Variable hyphenation has been preserved.

Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.

Author’s punctuation style has been preserved.

Typographical problems have been corrected as listed in the Transcriber’s Note at the end of the text.

CHRONICLES OF BORDER WARFARE

Chronicles of Border Warfare

OR, A

History of the Settlement by the Whites, of North-
Western Virginia, and of the Indian Wars and Massacres
in that section of the State

WITH

REFLECTIONS, ANECDOTES, &c.

BY

ALEXANDER SCOTT WITHERS

A New Edition

EDITED AND ANNOTATED BY

REUBEN GOLD THWAITES

Secretary of the Wisconsin Historical Society, editor of “Wisconsin Historical Collections,”
and author of “The Colonies, 1492-1750,” “Historic Waterways,”
“Story of Wisconsin,” etc.

With the addition of a Memoir of the Author, and several Illustrative Notes.

BY THE LATE

LYMAN COPELAND DRAPER

Author of “King’s Mountain and Its Heroes,” “Autograph Collections
of the Signers,” etc.

CINCINNATI
THE ROBERT CLARKE COMPANY
1895

Copyright, 1895

By Reuben Gold Thwaites

All rights reserved

CONTENTS.

v

EDITOR’S PREFACE.

It is sixty-four years since the original edition of Withers’s Chronicles of Border Warfare was given to the public. The author was a faithful recorder of local tradition. Among his neighbors were sons and grandsons of the earlier border heroes, and not a few actual participants in the later wars. He had access, however, to few contemporary documents. He does not appear to have searched for them, for there existed among the pioneer historians of the West a respect for tradition as the prime source of information, which does not now obtain; to-day, we desire first to see the documents of a period, and care little for reminiscence, save when it fills a gap in or illumines the formal record. The weakness of the traditional method is well exemplified in Withers’s work. His treatment of many of the larger events on the border may now be regarded as little else than a thread on which to hang annotations; but in most of the local happenings which are here recorded he will always, doubtless, remain a leading authority––for his informants possessed full knowledge of what occurred within their own horizon, although having distorted notions regarding affairs beyond it.

The Chronicles had been about seven years upon the market, when a New York youth, inspired by the pages of Doddridge, Flint, and Withers, with a fervid love for border history, entered upon the task of collecting documents and traditions with which to correct and amplify the lurid story which these authors had outlined. In the prosecution of this undertaking, Lyman C. Draper became so absorbed with the passion of collecting that he found little opportunity for literary effort, and in time his early facility in this direction became dulled. He was the most successful of collectors of materials for Western history, and as such did a work which must earn for him the lasting gratitude of American historical students; but unfortunately vi he did little more than collect and investigate, and the idea which to the last strongly possessed him, of writing a series of biographies of trans-Alleghany pioneers, was never realized. He died August 26, 1891, having accomplished wondrous deeds for the Wisconsin Historical Society, of which he was practically the founder, and for thirty-three years the main stay; in the broader domain of historical scholarship, however, he had failed to reach his goal. His great collection of manuscripts and notes, he willed to his Society, which has had them carefully classified and conveniently bound––a lasting treasure for historians of the West and Southwest, for the important frontier period between about 1740 and 1816.

Dr. Draper had exhibited much ability as an editor, in the first ten volumes of the Wisconsin Historical Collections. In 1890, the Robert Clarke Company engaged him, as the best living authority on the details of Western border history, to prepare and edit a new edition of Withers. He set about the task with interest, and was engaged in the active preparation of “copy” during his last months on earth; indeed, his note upon page 123 of this edition is thought to have been his final literary work. He had at that time prepared notes for about one-fourth of the book, and had written his “Memoir of the Author.”

The matter here rested until the autumn of 1894, when the publishers requested the present writer to take up the work where his revered friend had left it, and see the edition through the press. He has done this with some reluctance, conscious that he approached the task with a less intimate knowledge of the subject than his predecessor; nevertheless he was unwilling that Dr. Draper’s notes on the early pages should be lost, and has deemed it a labor of love to complete the undertaking upon which the last thoughts of the latter fondly dwelt.

In the preparation of his own notes, the editor has had the great advantage of free access to the Draper Manuscripts; without their help, it would have been impossible to throw further light on many of the episodes treated by the author. The text of Withers has been preserved intact, save that where errors have obviously been typographical, vii and not intended by the author, the editor has corrected them––perhaps in a dozen instances only, for the original proof-reading appears to have been rather carefully done. The pagination of the original edition has in this been indicated by brackets, as [54]. In the original, the publisher’s “Advertisement” and the “Table of Contents” were bound in at the end of the work,––see collation in Field’s Indian Bibliography,––but evidently this was a make-shift of rustic binders in a hurry to get out the long-delayed edition, and the editor has taken the liberty to transfer them to their proper place; also, while preserving typographical peculiarities therein, to change the pagination in the “Contents” to accord with the present edition. In order clearly to indicate the authorship of notes, those by Withers himself are unsigned; those by Dr. Draper are signed “L. C. D.”; and those by the present writer, “R. G. T.”

Reuben Gold Thwaites.

Madison, Wis.,
February, 1895.

viii

MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR.

BY LYMAN COPELAND DRAPER.

In 1831, an interesting volume appeared from the press of Joseph Israel, of Clarksburg, in North Western Virginia, prepared by Alexander Scott Withers, on the border wars of the West. It was well received at the time of its publication, when works on that subject were few, and read with avidity by the surviving remnant of the participators in the times and events so graphically described, and by their worthy descendants.

Historians and antiquarians also received it cordially, universally according it high praise. Mann Butler, the faithful historian of Kentucky, declared that it was “a work to which the public was deeply indebted,” composed, as it was, with “so much care and interest.” The late Samuel G. Drake, the especial historian of the Red Man, pronounced it “a work written with candor and judgment.” The late Thomas W. Field, the discriminating writer on Indian Bibliography, says: “Of this scarce book, very few copies are complete or in good condition. Having been issued in a remote corner of North-Western Virginia, and designed principally for a local circulation, almost every copy was read by a country fireside until scarcely legible. Most of the copies lack the table of contents. The author took much pains to be authentic, and his chronicles are considered by Western antiquarians, to form the best collection of frontier life and Indian warfare, that has been printed.”

Of such a work, now difficult to procure at any price, a new edition is presented to the public. In 1845, the writer of this notice visited the Virginia Valley, collecting materials on the same general subject, going over much the same field of investigation, and quite naturally, at that early period, identifying very large the sources of Mr. Withers’s information, thus making it possible to reproduce ix his work with new lights and explanations, such as generally give pleasure and interest to the intelligent reader of border history.[1]

In 1829, a local antiquary, of Covington, a beautiful little village nestling in a high mountain valley near the head of James River, in Alleghany County, Virginia, gathered from the aged pioneers still lingering on the shores of time, the story of the primitive settlement and border wars of the Virginia Valley. Hugh Paul Taylor, for such was his name, was the precursor, in all that region, of the school of historic gleaners, and published in the nearest village paper, The Fincastle Mirror, some twenty miles away, a series of articles, over the signature of “Son of Cornstalk,” extending over a period of some forty stirring years, from about 1740 to the close of the Revolutionary War. These articles formed at least the chief authority for several of the earlier chapters of Mr. Withers’s work. Mr. Taylor had scarcely molded his materials into shape, and put them into print, when he was called hence at an early age, without having an opportunity to revise and publish the results of his labors under more favorable auspices.

Soon after Mr. Taylor’s publication, Judge Edwin S. Duncan, of Peel Tree, in then Harrison, now Barbour County, West Virginia, a gentleman of education, and well fitted for such a work, residing in the heart of a region rife with the story of Indian wars and hair-breadth escapes, made a collection of materials, probably including Mr. Taylor’s sketches, with a view to a similar work; but his professional pursuits and judicial services interposed to preclude the faithful prosecution of the work, so he turned over to Mr. Withers his historic gatherings, with x such suggestions, especially upon the Indian race, as by his studies and reflections he was enabled to offer.

Other local gleaners in the field of Western history, particularly Noah Zane, of Wheeling, John Hacker, of the Hacker’s Creek settlement, and others, freely furnished their notes and statements for the work. Mr. Withers, under these favorable circumstances, became quite well equipped with materials regarding especially the first settlement and Indian wars of the region now comprising West Virginia; and, to a considerable extent, the region of Staunton and farther southwest, of the French and Indian War period, together with Dunmore’s War, and the several campaigns from the western borders of Virginia and Pennsylvania into the Ohio region, during the Revolutionary War.

Alexander Scott Withers, for his good services in the field of Western history, well deserves to have his name and memory perpetuated as a public benefactor. Descending, on his father’s side, from English ancestry, he was the fourth child of nine, in the family of Enoch K. and Jennet Chinn Withers, who resided at a fine Virginia homestead, called Green Meadows, half a dozen miles from Warrenton, Fauquier county, Virginia, where the subject of this sketch was born on the 12th of October, 1792––on the third centennial anniversary of the discovery of America by Columbus. His mother was the daughter of Thomas Chinn and Jennet Scott––the latter a native of Scotland, and a first cousin of Sir Walter Scott.

Passing his early years in home and private schools, he became from childhood a lover of books and knowledge. He read Virgil at the early age of ten; and, in due time, entered Washington College, and thence entered the law department of the venerable institution of William and Mary, where Jefferson, Monroe, Wythe, and other Virginia notables, received their education.

Procuring a license to practice, he was admitted to the bar in Warrenton, where for two or three years he practiced his profession. His father dying in 1813, he abandoned his law practice, which he did not like, because he could not overcome his diffidence in public xi speaking; and, for quite a period, he had the management of his mother’s plantation.

In August, 1815, he was united in marriage with Miss Melinda Fisher, a most estimable lady, a few months his junior; and about 1827, having a growing family, he looked to the Great West for his future home and field of labor, and moved to West Virginia, first locating temporarily in Bridgeport, in Harrison County, and subsequently settling near Clarksburg in the same county, where he devoted much time in collecting materials for and writing his Chronicles of Border Warfare.

The publisher, Joseph Israel, who took a deep interest in the work, as his “Advertisement” of it suggests, must have realized ample recompense for the work, as he had subscribers for the full edition issued; yet, from some cause, he failed pecuniarily, and Mr. Withers got nothing whatever for his diligence and labor in producing it, save two or three copies of the work itself. He used to say, that had he published the volume himself, he would have made it much more complete, and better in every way; for he was hampered, limited, and hurried––often correcting proof of the early, while writing the later chapters. Mr. Israel, the publisher, died several years ago.

After this worthy but unremunerative labor, Mr. Withers turned his attention to Missouri for a suitable home for his old age. He was disappointed in his visit to that new state, as the richer portions of the country, where he would have located, were more or less unhealthy. So he returned to West Virginia, and settled near Weston, a fine, healthful region of hills and valleys, where he engaged in agricultural pursuits, in which he always took a deep interest. He also served several years as a magistrate, the only public position he ever filled.

The death of his wife in September, 1853, broke sadly into his domestic enjoyments; his family were now scattered, and his home was henceforward made with his eldest daughter, Mrs. Jennet S. Tavenner, and her husband, Thomas Tavenner, who in 1861 removed to a home adjoining Parkersburg, in West Virginia. Here our author lived a retired, studious life, until his death, which occurred, xii after a few days’ illness, January 23, 1865, in the seventy-third year of his age.

Mr. Withers had no talent for the acquisition of wealth; but he met with marked success in acquiring knowledge. He was an admirer of ancient literature, and to his last days read the Greek classics in the original. A rare scholar, a lover of books, his tastes were eminently domestic; he was, from his nature, much secluded from the busy world around him. Nearly six feet high, rather portly and dignified, as is shown by his portrait, taken when he was about sixty years of age––he was kind and obliging to all, and emphatically a true Virginia gentleman of the old school. His sympathies during the War of Secession, were strongly in favor of the Union cause, the happy termination of which he did not live to witness. His son, Henry W. Withers, served with credit during the war in the Union service in the Twelfth Virginia Regiment.

Mr. Withers was blessed with two sons and three daughters––one of the sons has passed away; the other, Major Henry W. Withers, resides in Troy, Gilmer county, West Virginia; Mrs. Tavenner still lives at Parkersburg; Mrs. Mary T. Owen, at Galveston, Texas, and Mrs. Elizabeth Ann Thornhill, in New Orleans.

xiii

xiv

xv

xvii

CONTENTS.

Introduction.––General view of the discovery of North America, by England, France and Spain. 1 to 11. Aborigines of America––Their origin. 12-27. Their persons and character––Indian antiquities. 28-43.

Chapter 1. Of the country west of Blue ridge, difficulties attending its first settlement; Indians in neighborhood––their tribes and numbers. Various parties explore the Valley; their adventures. Benjamin Burden receives a grant of land; settles 100 families, their general character, West of Blue ridge divided into two counties; its present population, &c. Discovery of Greenbrier, explored by Martin and Seal; by the Lewis’s, Greenbrier Company, settlement of Muddy Creek and Big Levels, of New river and Holstein; of Gallipolis by French. 44-62.

Chap. 2nd. North Western Virginia, divisions and population, Importance of Ohio river to the French, and the English; Ohio Company; English traders made prisoners by French, attempt to establish fort frustrated, French erect Fort du Quesne; War; Braddock’s defeat; Andrew Lewis, character and services; Grant’s defeat, capture of Fort du Quesne and erection of Fort Pitt: Tygart and Files settle on East Fork of Monongahela, File’s family killed by Indians, Dunkards visit the country, settle on Cheat, their fate; settlement under Decker on the Monongahela, destroyed by Indians, pursuit by Gibson, origin of Long knives. 63-80.

Chap. 3rd. Expedition to the mouth of Big Sandy, ordered back by governor, their extreme sufferings: Dreadful catastrophe at Levit’s Fort, Shawnees visit James river settlements, their depredations and defeat, fortunate escape of Hannah Dennis, destruction at Muddy creek and Big Levels, Mrs. Clendennin, Indians visit Jackson and Catawba rivers, discovered, pursued, overtaken and dispersed, Mrs. Gunn. 81-99.

Chap. 4th. Indians commit depredations in Pennsylvania, burn three prisoners, excesses of Paxton Boys, Black Boys of great service to frontier, engagement at Turtle creek, Traders attempt to supply Indians, affair at Sidelong hill, Fort Bedford taken by Blackboys, Capt. James Smith, his character and services. 100-116.

Chap. 5th. Deserters from Fort Pitt visit head of Monongahela, The Pringles, Settlements of Buckhannon, of Hacker’s creek, Monongahela and other places, Of Wheeling by Zane’s, Their Character, Character of Wm. Lowther, Objects and character of the first settlers generally. 117-133.

Chap. 6th. War of 1774, Inquiry into its cause, Boone and others visit Kentucky, Emigrants attacked by Indians, Surveyors begin operations there, Affair at Captina, and opposite Yellow creek, Excesses of Indians, Preparations for [ii] war, Expedition against Wappatomica, Incursion of Logan and others, Of Indians on West Fork. 134-158.

Chap. 7th. Indians come on Big Kenhawa, Lewis and Jacob Whitsel taken prisoners, Their adventurous conduct, Plan of Dunmore’s xviii campaign, Battle at Point Pleasant, Dunmore enters Indian country and makes peace, Reflections on the motives of Dunmore’s conduct. 159-186.

Chap. 8th. General view of the relative situation of Great Britain and the colonies, British emissaries and American Tories stimulate the Savages to war, Progress of settlements in Kentucky, Character of Harrod, Boone and Logan, Attack on Harrod’s fort, on Boone’s and on Logan’s, Bowman arrives to its relief, Cornstock visits Point Pleasant, Projected campaign against the Indians abortive, Cornstock’s son visits him, Gilmore killed, Murder of Cornstock, Of Ellinipsico and others, Character of Cornstock. 187-214.

Chap. 9. General alarm on the frontier, Savages commit depredations, Intelligence of contemplated invasion, Condition of Wheeling, Indians seen near it, Two parties under captain Mason and captain Ogal decoyed within the Indian lines and cut to pieces, Girty demands the surrender of Wheeling, Col. Zane’s reply, Indians attacks the fort and retire, Arrival of col. Swearingen with a reinforcement, of captain Foreman, Ambuscade at Grave creek narrows, conspiracy of Tories discovered and defeated, Petro and White taken prisoners, Irruption into Tygarts Valley, Murder at Conoly’s and at Stewarts. 215-235.

Chap. 10. Measures of defence, Fort M’Intosh erected, exposed situation, commencement of hostilities, Attack on Harbert’s blockhouse, Murder at Morgan’s on Cheat, Of Lowther and Hughes, Indians appear before Fort at the point, Decoy Lieut. Moore into an ambuscade, a larger army visits Fort, stratagem to draw out the garrison, Prudence and precaution of capt. M’Kee. Fort closely besieged, Siege raised, Heroic adventure of Prior and Hammond to save Greenbrier, Attack on Donnelly’s Fort, Dick Pointer, Affair at West’s Fort, Successful artifice of Hustead, Affair at Cobern’s fort, at Strader’s, Murder of Stephen Washburn, captivity, &c. of James, Projected invasion of Indian country, Col. Clarke takes Kaskaskias and other towns, Fort Lawrens erected by Gen. M’Intosh and garrisoned. 236-256.

Chap. 11. Gov. Hamilton marches to St. Vincent––critical situation of col. Clarke, his daring expedition against Hamilton, condition of Fort Lawren’s, Successful stratagem of Indians there, Gen. M’Intosh arrives with an army, Fort evacuated, Transactions in Kentucky, captivity of Boone, his escape and expedition against Paint creek town, Indian [iii] army under Du Quesne appear before Boone’s fort, politic conduct of Boone, Fort assaulted, Assailants repulsed, Expedition against Chilicothe towns under Bowman, Its failure, Kentucky increases rapidly in population. 257-274.

Chap. 12. Hacker’s creek settlement breaks up, Alarm of Indians near Pricket’s fort, Stephen and Sarah Morgan sent to farm, Dream and anxiety of their father, His fearful encounter with two Indians, Kills both, Heroism of Mrs. Bozarth, Murders on Snow creek, captivity of Leonard Schoolcraft, Indians surprize Martin’s fort, destruction there, Irruptions into Tygart’s valley, Indians attack the house of Samuel Cottrail, Murder of John Schoolcraft’s family, Projected campaign of British and Indians, Indians again in Tygart’s Valley, mischief there, West’s fort invested, Hazardous adventure of Jesse Hughs to obtain assistance, Skirmish between whites and savages, coolness and intrepidity of Jerry Curl, Austin Schoolcraft killed and his niece taken prisoner, Murder of Owens and Judkins, of Sims, Small Pox terrifies Indians, Transactions in Greenbrier, Murder of Baker and others, last outrage in that country. 275-293

xix

Chap. 13. Operations of combined army of British and Indians, Surrender of Ruddle’s Station, Outrages of savages there, Col. Byrd enabled to restrain them, Martin’s station surrenders, Byrd returns to the Indian towns, Escape of Hinkstone, Invasion of North Western Virginia, Plan of campaign, Indians discovered near Wheeling, Take prisoners, Alarmed for their own safety, kill their prisoners and retire, Expedition under Col. Broadhead, against the Munsies, against Coshocton, excesses of the whites there, Expedition under Gen. Clarke against Chilicothe and Piqua, Battle at Piqua, Indian depredations in Virginia, murder of capt. Thomas and family, of Schoolcraft, Manear, and others, Destruction of Leading creek settlement, aggressors overtaken by a party under Col. Lowther, Affair of Indian creek, murder of Mrs. Furrenash, Williamson’s first expedition against Moravian Indians, Prisoners taken sent to Fort Pitt, Set at liberty, Their settlements broken up by Wyandotts. 294-317.

Chap. 14. The murder of Monteur and his family, others taken prisoners, Second expedition of Williamson against Moravians, its success and the savage conduct of the whites, Expedition under Crawford, his defeat––Is taken prisoner and burned; captivity and escape of Doctor Knight, of Slover; Death of Mills––Signal achievement of Lewis Whitsel. 318-339.

Chap. 15. Murder of White, Dorman and wife taken prisoners; Inhabitants on Buckhannon evacuate the fort, attacked by Indians on their way to the Valley; Whites visiting [iv] Buckhannon settlement discovered and watched by Indians––conduct of George Jackson to obtain aid, Stalnaker killed, Indians cross Alleghany––miss Gregg killed by Dorman, murder of mrs. Pindall, of Charles Washburn, of Arnold and Richards––Daring conduct of Elias Hughes––murder of Corbly’s family––Grand council of Indians at Chillicothe, Its determinations; Indian army enters Kentucky; Affair at Bryants station; Battle of Blue Licks––Expedition under Gen. Clarke, Attack on Wheeling, Attempt to demolish the fort with a wooden cannon, Signal exploit of Elizabeth Zane, Noble conduct of Francis Duke, Indians withdraw, Attack on Rives [Rice’s] Fort, Encounter of Poe with two Indians. 340-364.

Chap. 16. Peace with G. Britain, War continued by Indians––Operations in N. W. Virginia––murder of Daniel Radcliff, Attack on Cunninghams upon Bingamon, murders there; murders in Tazewell, of Davison, of Moore, mrs. Moore and seven children taken prisoners, their fate––murder of Ice, &c. Levi Morgan encounters two Indians, Indians steal horses on West Fork, pursued and punished by col. Lowther––murder of the Wests on Hacker’s creek, Remarkable recovery of J. Hacker’s daughter––murder of the Johnsons on Ten-mile creek, At Macks, Artifice of John Sims. 365-383.

Chap. 17. Rapid increase of population of Kentucky, operations there––Preparations of the general Government to carry on the war in the Indian country, Settlement of Marietta, Of Cincinatti, Fort Washington erected, Settlement of Duck creek, Big Bottom and Wolf creeks––Harmar’s campaign, murder of whites on Big Bottom, murder of John Bush––Affair at Hansucker’s on Dunkard––murder of Carpenter and others and escape of Jesse Hughes––campaign under Gen. St. Clair––Attack at Merrill’s, Heroic conduct of mrs. Merrill, Signal success of expedition under Gen. Scott. 384-407.

Chap. 18. Indians visit Hacker’s creek––murder of the Waggoners and captivity of others––murder of Neal and Triplet, major Truman and col. Hardin killed, Greater preparations made by General Government, John and Henry Johnson, Attack on the hunting camp xx of Isaac Zane, Noble conduct of Zane––Treatment of Indian prisoners, Fort Recovery erected, Escape of Joseph Cox––murder of miss Runyan and attack on Carder’s, Indians kill and make prisoners the Cozads, Affair at Joseph Kanaan’s, Progress of army under Gen. Wayne, Indians attack and defeat detachment under M’Mahon, battle of Au Glaize and victory of General Wayne, Affair at Bozarth’s on Buckhannon––Treaty of Greenville. 408-430.

1

[3] INTRODUCTION.

Chapter I.

It is highly probable that the continent of America was known to the Ancient Carthaginians, and that it was the great island Atalantis, of which mention is made by Plato, who represents it as larger than Asia and Africa. The Carthaginians were a maritime people, and it is known that they extended their discoveries beyond the narrow sphere which had hitherto limited the enterprise of the mariner. And although Plato represents Atalantis as having been swallowed by an earthquake, and all knowledge of the new continent, if any such ever existed, was entirely lost, still it is by no means improbable, that it had been visited by some of the inhabitants of the old world, prior to its discovery by Columbus in 1492. The manner of this discovery is well known, as is also the fact that Americo Vespucci, a Florentine, under the authority of Emmanuel king of Portugal, in sailing as far as Brazil discovered the main land and gave name to America.

These discoveries gave additional excitement to the adventurous spirit which distinguished those times, and the flattering reports made of the country which they had visited, inspired the different nations of Europe, with the desire of reaping the rich harvest, which the enlightened and enterprising mind of Columbus, had unfolded to their view. Accordingly, as early as March 1496, (less than two years after the discovery by Columbus) a commission was granted by Henry VII king of England, to John Cabot and his three sons, empowering them to sail under the English banner in quest of new discoveries, and in the event of their success to take possession, in the name of 2 the king of England, of the countries thus discovered and not inhabited by Christian people.

The expedition contemplated in this commission was never carried into effect. But in May 1498 Cabot with his son Sebastian, embarked on a voyage to attain the desired object, and succeeded in his design so far as to effect a discovery of [4] North America, and although he sailed along the coast from Labrador to Virginia, yet it does not now appear that he made any attempt either at settlement or conquest.

This is said to have been the first discovery ever made of that portion of our continent which extends from the Gulph of Mexico to the North pole; and to this discovery the English trace their title to that part of it, subsequently reduced into possession by them.[1]

As many of the evils endured by the inhabitants of the western part of Virginia, resulted from a contest between England and France, as to the validity of their respective claims to portions of the newly discovered country, it may not be amiss to take a general view of the discoveries and settlements effected by each of those powers.

After the expedition of Cabot, no attempt on the part of England, to acquire territory in America, seems to have been made until the year 1558. In this year letters patent were issued by Queen Elizabeth, empowering Sir Humphrey Gilbert to “discover and take possession of such remote, heathen, and barbarous lands, as were not actually possessed by any christian prince or people.” Two expeditions, conducted by this gentleman terminated unfavorably. Nothing was done by him towards the accomplishment of the objects in view, more than the taking possession of the island of New Foundland in the name of the English Queen.

In 1584 a similar patent was granted to Sir Walter 3 Raleigh, under whose auspices was discovered the country south of Virginia. In April of that year he dispatched two vessels under the command of Amidas and Barlow, for the purpose of visiting, and obtaining such a knowledge of the country which he proposed to colonize, as would facilitate the attainment of his object. In their voyage they approached the North American continent towards the Gulph of Florida, and sailing northwardly touched at an island situate on the inlet into Pamlico sound, in the state of North Carolina. To this island they gave the name of Wocoken, and proceeding from thence reached Roanoke near the mouth of Albemarle sound. After having remained here some weeks, and obtained from the natives the best information which they could impart concerning the country, Amidas and Barlow returned to England.

In the succeeding year Sir Walter had fitted out a squadron of seven ships, the command of which he gave to Sir Richard [5] Grenville. On board of this squadron were passengers, arms, ammunition and provisions for a settlement. He touched at the islands of Wocoken and Roanoke, which had been visited by Amidas and Barlow, and leaving a colony of one hundred and eight persons in the island of Roanoke, he returned to England. These colonists, after having remained about twelve months and explored the adjacent country, became so discouraged and exhausted by fatigue and famine, that they abandoned the country. Sir Richard Grenville returning shortly afterwards to America, and not being able to find them, and at a loss to conjecture their fate, left in the island another small party of settlers and again set sail for England.

The flattering description which was given of the country, by those who had visited it, so pleased Queen Elizabeth, that she gave to it the name of Virginia, as a memorial that it had been discovered in the reign of a Virgin Queen.

Other inefficient attempts were afterwards made to colonize North America during the reign of Elizabeth, but it was not ’till the year 1607, that a colony was permanently 4 planted there. In December of the preceding year a small vessel and two barks, under the command of captain Newport, and having on board one hundred and five men, destined to remain, left England. In April they were driven by a storm into Chesapeak bay, and after a fruitless attempt to land at Cape Henry, sailed up the Powhatan (since called James) River, and on the 13th of May 1607, debarked on the north side of the river at a place to which they gave the name of Jamestown. From this period the country continued in the occupancy of the whites, and remained subject to the crown of Great Britain until the war of the revolution.

A new charter which was issued in 1609 grants to “the treasurer and company of the adventurers, of the city of London for the first colony of Virginia, in absolute property the lands extending from Point Comfort along the sea coast two hundred miles to the northward, and from the same point, along the sea coast two hundred miles to the southward, and up into the land throughout from sea to sea, west and north-west; and also all islands lying within one hundred miles of the coast of both seas of the precinct aforesaid.” Conflicting charters, granted to other corporations, afterwards narrowed her limits; that she has been since reduced to her present comparatively small extent of territory, is attributable exclusively [6] to the almost suicidal liberality of Virginia herself.

On the part of France, voyages for the discovery and colonization of North America were nearly contemporaneous with those made by England for like objects. As early as the year 1540, a commission was issued by Francis 1st for the establishment of Canada.[2] In 1608, a French fleet, under the command of Admiral Champlaine, arrived 5 in the St. Lawrence and founded the city of Quebec. So successful were her attempts to colonize that province, that, notwithstanding its proximity to the English colonies, and the fact that a Spanish sailor had previously entered the St. Lawrence and established a port at the mouth of Grand river––neither of those powers seriously contested the right of France to its possession.––Yet it was frequently the theatre of war; and as early as 1629 was subdued by England. By the treaty of St. Germains in 1632 it was restored to France, as was also the then province of Acadie, now known as Nova Scotia. There is no doubt but that this latter province was, by priority of settlement, the property of France, but its principal town having been repeatedly reduced to possession by the English, it was ceded to them by the treaty of Utrecht in 1713.

To the country bordering the Mississippi river, and its tributary streams, a claim was made by England, France and Spain. The claim of England (based on the discovery by the Cabots of the eastern shore of the United States,) included all the country between the parallels of latitude within which the Atlantic shore was explored, extending westwardly to the Pacific ocean––a zone athwart the continent between the thirtieth and forty-eighth degrees of North latitude.

From the facility with which the French gained the good will and friendly alliance of the Natives in Canada, by intermarrying with, and assimilating themselves to the habits and inclinations of, these children of the forest, an intimacy arose which induced the Indians to impart freely to the French their knowledge of the interior country. Among other things information was communicated to them, of the fact that farther on there was a river of great size and immense length, which pursued a course opposite to that of the St. Lawrence, and emptied itself into an unknown sea. It was conjectured that it must necessarily flow either into the Gulph of Mexico, or the South Sea; and in 1673 Marquette and Joliet, French missionaries, together with five other men, commenced a journey 6 [7] from Quebec to ascertain the fact and examine the country bordering its shores.

From lake Michigan they proceeded up the Fox river nearly to its source; thence to Ouisconsin; down it to the Mississippi, in which river they sailed as far as to about the thirty-third degree of north latitude. From this point they returned through the Illinois country to Canada.

At the period of this discovery M. de La Salle, a Frenchman of enterprise, courage and talents but without fortune, was commandant of fort Frontignac. Pleased with the description given by Marquette and Joliet, of the country which they had visited, he formed the determination of examining it himself, and for this purpose left Canada in the close of the summer of 1679, in company with father Louis Hennepin and some others.[3] On the Illinois he erected fort Crevecœur, where he remained during the winter, and instructing father Hennepin, in his absence to ascend the Mississippi to its sources, returned to Canada. M. de La Salle subsequently visited this country, and establishing the villages of Cahokia and Kaskaskia, left them under the command of M. de Tonti, and going back to Canada, proceeded from thence to France to procure the co-operation of the Ministry in effecting a settlement of the valley of the Mississippi. He succeeded in impressing on the minds of the French Ministry, the great benefits which would result from its colonization, and was the first to suggest the propriety of connecting the settlements on the Mississippi with those in Canada by a cordon of forts; a measure which was subsequently attempted to be carried into effect.

With the aid afforded him by the government of France, he was enabled to prepare an expedition to accomplish his object, and sailing in 1684 for the mouth of the Mississippi, steered too far westward and landed in the province of Texas, and on the banks of the river Guadaloupe. Every exertion which a brave and prudent man 7 could make to effect the security of his little colony, and conduct them to the settlement in Illinois, was fruitlessly made by him. In reward for all his toil and care he was basely assassinated; the remnant of the party whom he was conducting through the wilderness, finally reached the Arkansas, where was a settlement of French emigrants from Canada. The colonists left by him at the bay of St. Bernard were mostly murdered by the natives, the remainder were carried away by the Spaniards in 1689.

[8] Other attempts made by the French to colonize the Mississippi near the Gulph of Mexico, were for some time unavailing. In an expedition for that purpose, conducted by M. Ibberville, a suit of armor on which was inscribed Ferdinand de Soto, was found in the possession of some Indians. In the year 1717 the spot, on which New Orleans now stands, was selected as the centre of the settlements, then first made in Louisiana, and the country continued in the possession of France until 1763. By the treaty of Paris in that year, she ceded to Great Britain, together with Canada her possessions east of the Mississippi, excepting only the island of New Orleans––this and her territory on the west bank of that river were transferred to Spain.

The title of Spain to the valley of the Mississippi, if made to depend on priority of discovery, would perhaps, to say the least, be as good as that of either of the other powers. Ferdinand de Soto, governor of Cuba, was most probably the first white man who saw that majestic stream.

The Spaniards had early visited and given name to Florida. In 1528 Pamphilo de Narvaez obtained a grant of it, and fitting out an armament, proceeded with four or five hundred men to explore and settle the country. He marched to the Indian village of Appalachas, when he was attacked and defeated by the natives. The most of those who escaped death from the hands of the savages, perished in a storm, by which they were overtaken on their voyage home. Narvaez himself perished in the wreck, and was succeeded in his attempt at colonization by de Soto.

Ferdinand de Soto, then governor of Cuba, was a man of chivalrous and enterprising spirit, and of cool, deliberate 8 courage. In his expedition to Florida, although attacked by the Indians, immediately on his landing, yet, rather seeking than shunning danger, he penetrated the interior, and crossing the Mississippi, sickened and died on Red river. So frequent and signal had been the victories which he had obtained over the Indians, that his name alone had become an object of terror to them; and his followers, at once to preserve his remains from violation, and prevent the natives from acquiring a knowledge of his death, enclosed his body in a hollow tree, sunk it in the Red river and returned to Florida.

Thus, it is said, were different parts of this continent discovered; and by virtue of the settlements thus effected, by [9] those three great powers of Europe, the greater portion of it was claimed as belonging to them respectively, in utter disregard of the rights of the Aborigines. And while the historian records the colonization of America as an event tending to meliorate the condition of Europe, and as having extended the blessings of civil and religious liberty, humanity must drop the tear of regret, that it has likewise forced the natives of the new, and the inhabitants of a portion of the old world, to drink so deeply from the cup of bitterness.

The cruelties which have been exercised on the Aborigines of America, the wrong and outrage heaped on them from the days of Montezuma and Guatimozin, to the present period, while they excite sympathy for their sufferings, should extenuate, if not justify the bloody deeds, which revenge prompted the untutored savages to commit. Driven as they were from the lands of which they were the rightful proprietors––Yielding to encroachment after encroachment ’till forced to apprehend their utter annihilation––Witnessing the destruction of their villages, the prostration of their towns and the sacking of cities adorned with splendid magnificence, who can feel surprised at any attempt which they might make to rid the country of its invaders. Who, but must applaud the spirit which prompted them, when they beheld their prince a captive, the blood of their nobles staining the earth with its crimson dye, and the Gods of their adoration scoffed and derided, 9 to aim at the destruction of their oppressors.––When Mexico, “with her tiara of proud towers,” became the theatre in which foreigners were to revel in rapine and in murder, who can be astonished that the valley of Otumba resounded with the cry of “Victory or Death?” And yet, resistance on their part, served but as a pretext for a war of extermination; waged too, with a ferocity, from the recollection of which the human mind involuntarily revolts, and with a success which has forever blotted from the book of national existence, once powerful and happy tribes.

But they did not suffer alone. As if to fill the cup of oppression to the brim, another portion of the human family were reduced to abject bondage, and made the unwilling cultivators of those lands, of which the Indians had been dispossessed. Soon after the settlement of North America was commenced, the negroes of Africa became an article of commerce, and from subsequent importations and natural [10] increase have become so numerous as to excite the liveliest apprehensions in the bosom of every friend to this country. Heretofore they have had considerable influence on the affairs of our government; and recently the diversity of interest, occasioned in Virginia, by the possession of large numbers of them in the country east of the blue ridge of mountains, seemed for a while to threaten the integrity of the state.––Happily this is now passing away, but how far they may effect the future destines of America, the most prophetic ken cannot foresee. Yet, although the philanthropist must weep over their unfortunate situation, and the patriot shudder in anticipation of a calamity which it may defy human wisdom to avert; still it would be unfair to charge the existence of slavery among us to the policy of the United States, or to brand their present owners as the instruments of an evil which they cannot remove. And while others boast that they are free from this dark spot, let them remember, that but for them our national escutcheon might have been as pure and unsullied as their own.[4]

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We are indebted to the Dutch for their introduction into Virginia, and to the ships of other than slave holding communities, for their subsequent unhallowed transportation to our shores. Yet those who were mainly instrumental in forging the chains of bondage, have since rendered the condition of the negro slave more intolerable by fomenting discontent among them, and by “scattering fire brands and torches,” which are often not to be extinguished but in blood.

Notwithstanding those two great evils which have resulted from the discovery and colonization of America, yet to these the world is indebted for the enjoyment of many and great blessings. They enlarged the theatre of agricultural enterprise, and thus added to the facilities of procuring the necessaries of life. They encouraged the industry of Europeans, by a dependence on them for almost every species of manufacture, and thus added considerably to their population, wealth and happiness; while the extensive tracts of fertile land, covering the face of this country and inviting to its bosom the enterprising [11] foreigner, has removed a far off any apprehension of the ill effects arising from a too dense population.

In a moral and political point of view much good has likewise resulted from the settlement of America. Religion, freed from the fetters which enthralled her in Europe, has shed her benign influence on every portion of our country. Divorced from an adulterous alliance with state, she has here stalked forth in the simplicity of her founder; and with “healing on her wings, spread the glad tidings of salvation to all men.” It is true that religious intolerance and blind bigotry, for some time clouded our horizon, but they were soon dissipated; and when the sun arose which ushered in the dawn of our national existence scarce a speck could be seen to dim its lustre. Here too was 11 reared the standard of civil liberty, and an example set, which may teach to the nations of the old world, that as people are really the source of power, government should be confided to them. Already have the beneficial effects of this example been manifested, and the present condition of Europe clearly shows, that the lamp of liberty, which was lighted here, has burned with a brilliancy so steady as to have reflected its light across the Atlantic. Whether it will be there permitted to shine, is somewhat problematical. But should a “holy alliance of legitimates” extinguish it, it will be but for a season. Kings, Emperors and Priests cannot succeed much longer in staying the march of freedom. The people are sensibly alive to the oppression of their rulers––they have groaned beneath the burden ’till it has become too intolerable to be borne; and they are now speaking in a voice which will make tyrants tremble on their throne.

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[12] INTRODUCTION.

Chapter II.

When America was first visited by Europeans, it was found that its inhabitants were altogether ignorant of the country from which their ancestors had migrated, and of the period at which they had been transplanted to the new world. And although there were among them traditions seeming to cast a light upon these subjects, yet when thoroughly investigated, they tended rather to bewilder than lead to any certain conclusion. The origin of the natives has ever since been a matter of curious speculation with the learned; conjecture has succeeded conjecture, hypothesis has yielded to hypothesis, as wave recedes before wave, still it remains involved in a labyrinth of inexplicable difficulties, from which the most ingenious mind will perhaps never be able to free it.

In this respect the situation of the aborigines of America does not differ from that of the inhabitants of other portions of the globe. An impenetrable cloud hangs over the early history of other nations, and defies the researches of the learned in any attempt to trace them to their origin. The attempt has nevertheless been repeatedly made; and philosophers, arguing from a real or supposed conformity of one people to another, have vainly imagined that they had attained to certainty on these subjects. And while one has in this manner, undertaken to prove China to have been an Egyptian colony, another, pursuing the same course of reasoning, has, by way of ridicule, shewn how easily a learned man of Tobolski or Pekin might as satisfactorily prove France to have been a Trojan, a Greek or even an Arabian colony; thus making manifest the utter futility of endeavoring to arrive at certainty in this way.[1]

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[13] Nor is this to be at all wondered at, when we reflect on the barbarous state of those nations in their infancy, the imperfection of traditionary accounts of what had transpired centuries before, and in many instances the entire absence of a written language, by which, either to perpetuate events, or enable the philosopher by analogy of language to ascertain their affinity with other nations. Conjectural then as must be every disquisition as to the manner in which this continent was first peopled, still however, as many men eminent for learning and piety have devoted much labor and time to the investigation of the subject, it may afford satisfaction to the curious to see some of those speculations recorded. Discordant as they are in many respects, there is nevertheless one fact as to the truth of which they are nearly all agreed; Mr. Jefferson is perhaps the only one, of those who have written on the subject, who seems to discredit the assertion that 14 America was peopled by emigrants from the old world. How well the conjecture, that the eastern inhabitants of Asia were descendants of the Indians of America can be supported by any knowledge which is possessed of the different languages spoken by the Aborigines, will be for others to determine. “Neque confirmare argumentis, neque refellere, in animo est; ex ingenio suo, quisque demat vel addat fidem.”

Among those who have given to the world their opinions on the origin of the natives of America, is Father Jos. Acosta, a Jesuit who was for some time engaged as a missionary among them. From the fact that no ancient author has made mention of the [14] compass, he discredits the supposition that the first inhabitants of this country found their way here by sea. His conclusion is that they must have found a passage by the North of Asia and Europe which he supposes to join each other; or by those regions which lie southward of the straits of Magellan.

Gregorio Garcia, who was likewise a missionary among the Mexicans and Peruvians, from the traditions of those nations, and from the variety of characters, customs, languages and religion, observable in the new world, has formed the opinion that it was peopled by several different nations.

John de Laet, a Flemish writer, maintains that America received its first inhabitants from Scythia or Tartary, and soon after the dispersion of Noah’s grand-sons. The resemblance of the northern Indians, in feature, complexion and manner of living, to the Scythians, Tartars, and Samojedes, being greater than to any other nations.

Emanuel de Moraez, in his history of Brazil, says that this continent was wholly peopled by the Carthaginians and Israelites. In confirmation of this opinion, he mentions the discoveries which the Carthaginians are known to have made beyond the coast of Africa. The progress of these discoveries being stopped by the Senate of Carthage, those who happened to be in the newly discovered countries, cut off from all communication with their countrymen, and being destitute of many of the necessaries of life, easily fell into a state of barbarism. 15

George de Huron, a Dutch writer on this subject, considering the short space of time which elapsed between the creation of the world and the deluge, maintains that America could not have been peopled before the flood. He likewise supposes that its first inhabitants were located in the north; and that the primitive colonies extended themselves over the whole extent of the continent, by means of the Isthmus of Panama. It is his opinion that the first founders of these Indian colonies were Scythians; that the Phœnicians and Carthaginians subsequently got to America across the Atlantic, and the Chinese across the Pacific ocean, and that other nations might have landed there by one of these means, or been thrown on the coast by tempest: since through the whole extent of the continent, both in its northern and southern parts there are evident marks of a mixture of the northern nations with those who have come from other places.

[15] He also supposes that another migration of the Phœnicians took place during a three years voyage made by the Tyrian fleet in the service of king Solomon. He asserts, on the authority of Josephus, that the port at which this embarkation was made, lay in the Mediterranean. The fleet, he adds, went in quest of Elephants’ teeth and Peacocks, to the western coast of Africa, which is Tarshish, then for gold to Ophir, which is Haite or the Island of Hispaniola. In the latter opinion he is supported by Columbus, who, when he discovered that Island, thought he could trace the furnaces in which the gold had been refined.

Monsieur Charlevoix, who travelled through North America, is of opinion that it received its first inhabitants from Tartary and Hyrcania. In support of this impression he says that some of the animals which are to be found here, must have come from those countries: a fact which would go to prove that the two hemispheres join to the northward of Asia. And in order to strengthen this conjecture, he relates the following story, which he says was told to him by Father Grollon, a French Jesuit, as matter of fact.

Father Grollon said, that after having labored some 16 time in the missions of New France, he passed over to China. One day as he was travelling in Tartary he met a Huron woman whom he had known in Canada. He asked her by what adventure she had been carried into a country so very remote from her own; she replied that having been taken in war, she was conducted from nation to nation, until she reached the place where she then was.

Monsieur Charlevoix narrates another circumstance of a similar kind. He says that he had been assured, another Jesuit had met with a Floridian woman in China. She also had been made captive by certain Indians, who gave her to those of a more distant country, and by these again she was given to those of another nation, ’till having been successively passed from country to country, and after having travelled through regions extremely cold, she at length found herself in Tartary. Here she had married a Tartar, who had attended the conquerors in China, and with whom she then was.

Arguing from these facts and from the similarity of several kinds of wild beasts which are found in America, with those of Hyrcania and Tartary, he arrives at what he deems, a [16] rational conclusion, that more than one nation in America had Scythian or Tartarian extraction.

Charlevoix possessed a good opportunity of becoming acquainted with the character and habits of the American Indians. His theory however has been controverted by some, possessing equal advantages of observation. Mr. Adair, an intelligent gentleman who resided among the nations during the space of forty years, and who became well acquainted with their manners, customs, religion, traditions and language, has given to them a very different origin. But perfect soever as may have been his knowledge of their manners, customs, religion and traditions, yet it must be admitted that any inquiry into these, with a view to discover their origin, would most probably prove fallacious. A knowledge of the primitive language, alone can cast much light on the subject. Whether this knowledge can ever be attained, is, to say the least, very questionable––Being an unwritten language, and subject to change for so many centuries, it can scarcely be supposed 17 now to bear much, if any affinity, to what it was in its purity.

Mr. Adair says, that from the most exact observation he could make during the long time which he traded among the Indians, he was forced to believe them lineally descended from the Israelites, either when they were a maritime power, or soon after the general captivity; most probably the latter.

He thinks that had the nine tribes and a half, which were carried off by Shalmanezer, king of Assyria, and which settled in Media, remained there long, they would, by intermarrying with the nations of that country, from a natural fickleness and proneness to idolatry, and from the force of example, have adopted and bowed before the Gods of the Medes and Assyrians; and have carried them along with them. But he affirms that there is not the least trace of this idolatry to be discovered among the Indians: and hence he argues that those of the ten tribes who were the forefathers of the natives, soon advanced eastward from Assyria and reached their settlements in the new continent, before the destruction of the first Temple.

In support of the position that the American Indians are thus descended, Mr. Adair adduces among others the following arguments:

1st, Their division into tribes.

“As each nation has its particular symbol, so each tribe has [17] the badge from which it is denominated. The Sachem is a necessary party in conveyances and treaties, to which he affixes the mark of his tribe. If we go from nation to nation among them, we shall not find one, who does not distinguish himself by his respective family. The genealogical names which they assume, are derived either from the names of those animals whereof the cherubim is said in revelation to be compounded; or from such creatures as are most similar to them. The Indians bear no religious respect to the animals from which they derive their names; on the contrary they kill them whenever an opportunity serves.

“When we consider that these savages have been upwards of twenty centuries without the aid of letters to 18 carry down their traditions, it can not be reasonably expected, that they should still retain the identical names of their primogenial tribes: their main customs corresponding with those of the Israelites, sufficiently clear the subject. Moreover they call some of their tribes by the names of the cherubinical figures, which were carried on the four principal standards of Israel.”

2nd, Their worship of Jehovah.

“By a strict, permanent, divine precept, the Hebrew nation was ordered to worship at Jerusalem, Jehovah the true and living God, who by the Indians is styled ‘Yohewah.’ The seventy-two interpreters have translated this word so as to signify, Sir, Lord, Master, applying to mere earthly potentates, without the least signification or relation to that great and awful name, which describes the divine presence.”

3rd, Their notions of a theocracy.

“Agreeably to the theocracy or divine government of Israel, the Indians think the deity to be the immediate head of the state. All the nations of Indians have a great deal of religious pride, and an inexpressible contempt for the white people. In their war orations they used to call us the accursed people, but flatter themselves with the name of the beloved people, because their supposed ancestors were, as they affirm, under the immediate government of the Deity, who was present with them in a peculiar manner, and directed them by Prophets, while the rest of the world were aliens to the covenant.[2] When the old Archimagus, 19 or any of their Magi, is [18] persuading the people at their religious solemnities, to a strict observance of the old beloved or divine speech, he always calls them the beloved or holy people, agreeably to the Hebrew epithet, Ammi, (my people) during the theocracy of Israel. It is this opinion, that God has chosen them out of the rest of mankind, as his peculiar people, which inspires the white Jew, and the red American, with that steady hatred against all the world except themselves, and renders them hated and despised by all.”

5th, Their language and dialects.

“The Indian language and dialects appear to have the very idiom and genius of the Hebrew. Their words and sentences are expressive, concise, emphatical, sonorous and bold; and often both the letters and signification are synonymous with the Hebrew language.” Of these Mr. Adair cites a number of examples.

6th, Their manner of counting time.

“The Indians count time after the manner of the Hebrews. They divide the year into spring, summer, autumn and winter. They number their year from any of these four periods, for they have no name for a year; and they subdivide these and count the year by lunar months, like the Israelites who counted time by moons, as their name sufficiently testifies.

“The number and regular periods of the religious feasts among the Indians, is a good historical proof that they counted time by and observed a weekly Sabbath, long after their arrival in America. They began the year at the appearance of the first new moon of the vernal equinox, according to the ecclesiastical year of Moses. ’Till the seventy years captivity [19] commenced, the Israelites had only numeral names for their months, except Abib and Ethanim; the former signifying a green ear of corn, the latter robust or valiant; by the first name the Indians as an explicative, term their passover, which the trading people call the green corn dance.”

7th, Their prophets or high priests.

“In conformity to, or after the manner of the Jews, the Indians have their prophets, high priests, and others of a 20 religious order. As the Jews have a Sanctum Sanctorum, so have all the Indian nations. There they deposit their consecrated vessels––none of the laity daring to approach that sacred place. The Indian tradition says, that their forefathers were possessed of an extraordinary divine spirit by which they foretold future events; and that this was transmitted to their offspring, provided they obeyed the sacred laws annexed to it.[3] [20] Ishtoallo is the name of all their 21 priestly order and their pontifical office descends by inheritance to the eldest. There are traces of agreement, though chiefly lost, in their pontifical dress. Before the Indian Archimagus officiates in making the supposed holy fire for the yearly atonement of sin, the Sagan clothes him with a white ephod, which is a waistcoat without sleeves. In resemblance of the Urim and Thummim the American Archimagus wears a breastplate made of a white conch-shell, with two holes bored in the middle of it, through which he puts the ends of an otter-skin strap; and fastens a buck-horn white button to the outside of each; as if in imitation of the precious stones of the Urim.”

In remarking upon this statement of Mr. Adair, Faber, a learned divine of the church of England, has said, that Ishtoallo (the name according to Adair of the Indian priests) is most probably a corruption of Ish-da-Eloah, a man of God, (the term used by the Shunemitish woman in speaking of Elisha;) and that Sagan is the very name by which the Hebrews called the deputy of the High Priest, who supplied his office and who performed the functions of it in the absence of the high priest, or when any accident had disabled him from officiating in person.

8th, Their festivals, fasts and religious rites.

“The ceremonies of the Indians in their religious worship,[21] are more after the Mosaic institution, than of Pagan imitation. This could not be the fact if a majority of the old nations were of heathenish descent. They are utter strangers to all the gestures practiced by Pagans in their religious rites. They have likewise an appellative, which with them is the mysterious, essential name of God; the tetragrammaton, which they never use in common 22 speech. They are very particular of the time and place, when and where they mention it, and this is always done in a very solemn manner. It is known that the Jews had so great and sacred regard for the four lettered, divine name, as scarcely ever to mention it, except when the High Priest went into the sanctuary for the expiation of sins.”

Mr. Adair likewise says that the American Indians, like the Hebrews, have an ark in which are kept various holy vessels, and which is never suffered to rest on the bare ground. “On hilly ground, where stones are plenty, they always place it on them, but on level land it is made to rest on short legs. They have also a faith, in the power and holiness of their ark, as strong as the Israelites had in theirs. It is too sacred and dangerous to be touched by any one, except the chieftain and his waiter. The leader virtually acts the part of a priest of war protempore, in imitation of the Israelites fighting under the divine military banner.”

Among their other religious rites the Indians, according to Adair, cut out the sinewy part of the thigh; in commemoration, as he says, of the Angel wrestling with Jacob.

12th, Their abstinence from unclean things.

“Eagles of every kind are esteemed by the Indians to be unclean food; as also ravens, crows, bats, buzzards and every species of owl. They believe that swallowing gnats, flies and the like, always breed sickness. To this that divine sarcasm alludes ‘swallowing a camel and straining at a gnat.’” Their purifications for their Priests, and for having touched a dead body or other unclean thing, according to Mr. Adair, are quite Levitical. He acknowledges however, that they have no traces of circumcision; but he supposes that they lost this rite in their wanderings, as it ceased among the Hebrews, during the forty years in the wilderness.

15th, Their cities of refuge.

“The Israelites had cities of refuge for those who killed persons unawares. According to the same particular divine [22] law of mercy, each of the Indian nations has a house or town of refuge, which is a sure asylum to protect 23 a man-slayer, or the unfortunate captive, if they can but once enter into it. In almost every nation they have peaceable towns, called ancient holy, or white towns. These seem to have been towns of refuge; for it is not in the memory of man, that ever human blood was shed in them, although they often force persons from thence and put them to death elsewhere.”

16th, Their purifications and ceremonies preparatory.

“Before the Indians go to war they have many preparatory ceremonies of purification and fasting like what is recorded of the Israelites.”

21st, Their raising seed to a deceased brother.

“The surviving brother, by the Mosaic law, was to raise seed to a deceased brother, who left a widow childless. The Indian custom looks the very same way; but in this as in their law of blood, the eldest brother can redeem.”

With these and many arguments of a like kind, has Mr. Adair endeavored to support the conjecture, that the American Indians are lineally descended from the Israelites; and gravely asks of those who may dissent from his opinion of their origin and descent, to inform him how they came here, and by what means they formed the long chain of rites and customs so similar to those of the Hebrews, and dissimilar to the rites and customs of the pagan world.

Major Carver, a provincial officer who sojourned some time with the Indians and visited twelve different nations of them, instead of observing the great similarity, mentioned by Adair as existing between the natives and Hebrews, thought he could trace features of resemblance between them and the Chinese and Tartars; and has undertaken to shew how they might have got here. He says,

“Although it is not ascertained certainly, that the continents of Asia and America join each other, yet it is proven that the sea which is supposed to divide them, is full of islands the distance from which to either continent, is comparatively trifling. From these islands a communication with the main land could be more readily effected than from any other point.” “It is very evident that the manners 24 and customs of the American Indians, resemble that of the Tartars; and I have no doubt that in some future era, it will be reduced to a certainty that in some of the wars between the Chinese and Tartars, a part [23] of the inhabitants of the northern provinces were driven from their country and took refuge in some of these islands, and from thence found their way to America. At different periods each nation might prove victorious, and the conquered by turns fly before the conquerors; and hence might arise the similitude of the Indians to all these people, and that animosity which exists among so many of their tribes.”

After remarking on the similarity which exists between the Chinese and Indians, in the singular custom of shaving or plucking out the hair leaving only a small spot on the crown of the head; and the resemblance in sound and signification which many of the Chinese and Indian words bear to each other, he proceeds, “After the most critical inquiry and mature deliberation, I am of opinion that America received its first inhabitants from the northeast, by way of the islands mentioned as lying between Asia and America. This might have been effected at different times and from different parts: from Tartary, China, Japan or Kamschatka, the inhabitants of these countries resembling each other, in color, feature and shape.”

Other writers on this subject, coinciding in opinion with Carver, mention a tradition which the Indians in Canada have, that foreign merchants clothed in silk formerly visited them in great ships: these are supposed to have been Chinese, the ruins of Chinese ships having been found on the American coast. The names of many of the American kings, are said to be Tartar; and Tartarax, who reigned formerly in Quivira, means the Tartar. Manew, the founder of the Peruvian empire, most probably came from the Manchew Tartars. Montezuma, the title of the emperors of Mexico, is of Japanese extraction; for according to some authors it is likewise the appellation of the Japanese Monarch. The plant Ginseng, since found in America, where the natives termed it 25 Garentoguen, a word of the same import in their language, with Ginseng in the Tartar, both meaning The Thighs of a Man.

Dr. Robertson is decidedly of opinion, that the different tribes of American Indians, excepting the Esquimaux, are of Asiatic extraction. He refers to a tradition among the Mexicans of the migration of their ancestors from a remote country, situated to the north-west of Mexico, and says they point out their various stations as they advanced into the interior provinces, which is precisely the route they must have held, if they had been emigrants from Asia.

Mr. Jefferson, in his notes on Virginia, says, that the passage from Europe to America was always practicable, even to the imperfect [24] navigation of the ancient times; and that, from recent discoveries, it is proven, that if Asia and America be separated at all it is only by a narrow streight. “Judging from the resemblance between the Indians of America and the eastern inhabitants of Asia, we should say that the former are descendants of the latter, or the latter of the former, except indeed the Esquimaux, who, from the same circumstance of resemblance, and from identity of language, must be derived from the Greenlanders. A knowledge of their several languages would be the most certain evidence of their derivation which could be produced. In fact it is the best proof of the affinity of nations, which ever can be referred to.”

After regretting that so many of the Indian tribes have been suffered to perish, without our having collected and preserved the general rudiments of their language, he proceeds,

“Imperfect as is our knowledge of the tongues spoken in America, it suffices to discover the following remarkable fact. Arranging them under the radical ones to which they may be palpably traced, and doing the same by those of the red men of Asia, there will be found probably twenty in America, for one in Asia, of those radical languages; so called because if ever they were the same, they have lost all resemblance to one another. A separation into dialects may be the work of a few ages only, but 26 for two dialects to recede from one another, ’till they have lost all vestiges of their common origin, must require an immense course of time; perhaps not less than many people give to the age of the earth. A greater number of those radical changes of language having taken place among the red men of America proves them of greater antiquity than those of Asia.”

Indian traditions say, that “in ancient days the Great Island appeared upon the big waters, the earth brought forth trees, herbs and fruits: that there were in the world a good and a bad spirit, the good spirit formed creeks and rivers on the great island, and created numerous species of animals to inhabit the forests, and fishes of all kinds to inhabit the water. He also made two beings to whom he gave living souls and named them Ea-gwe-howe, (real people). Subsequently some of the people became giants and committed outrages upon the others. After many years a body of Ea-gwe-howe people encamped on the bank of a majestic stream, which they named, Kanawaga (St. Lawrence.) After a long time a number of foreign people sailed from a part unknown, but unfortunately the winds drove them off and they ultimately landed on the southern part of the great island and many of the crew perished. Those who survived, selected a place for residence, erected fortifications, became a numerous people and extended their settlements.”[4]

Thus various and discordant are the conjectures respecting the manner in which this continent was first peopled. Although some [25] of them appear more rational and others, yet are they at best but hypothetical disquisitions on a subject which will not now admit of certainty. All agree that America was inhabited long anterior to its discovery by Columbus, and by a race of human beings, who, however numerous they once were, are fast hastening to extinction; some centuries hence and they will be no more known. The few memorials, which the ravages of time have suffered to remain of them, in those portions of the country from which they have been 27 long expelled; have destruction dealt them by the ruthless hand of man. History may transmit to after ages, the fact that they once were, and give their “local habitation and their name.” These will probably be received as the tales of fiction, and posterity be at as much loss to determine, whether they ever had an existence, as we now are to say from whence they sprang.

28

INTRODUCTION.

Chapter III.

The aborigines of America, although divided into many different tribes, inhabiting various climates, and without a community of language, are yet assimilated to each other in stature and complexion, more strikingly than are the inhabitants of the different countries of Europe. The manners and customs of one nation, are very much the manners and customs of all; and although there be peculiarities observable among all, yet are they fewer and less manifest than those which mark the nations of the old world, and distinguish them so palpably from each other. A traveller might have traversed the country, when occupied exclusively by the natives, without remarking among them, the diversity which exists in Europe; or being impressed with the contrast which a visit across the Pyrennes would exhibit, between the affability and vivacity of a Frenchman at a theatre or in the Elysian fields, and the hauteur and reserve of a Spaniard at their bloody circus, when “bounds with one lashing spring the mighty brute.”

[26] Nor is there much in savage life, calculated to inspire the mind of civilized man, with pleasurable sensations. Many of the virtues practised by them, proceed rather from necessity or ignorance than from any ethical principle existing among them. The calm composure with which they meet death and their stoical indifference to bodily pain, are perhaps more attributable to recklessness of life and physical insensibility,[1] than to fortitude or magnanimity; consequently they do not much heighten the zest of reflection, in contemplating their character. The christian and the philanthropist, with the benevolent 29 design of improving their morals and meliorating their condition, may profitably study every peculiarity and trait of character observable among them; it will facilitate their object and enable them the more readily to reclaim them from a life of heathenish barbarity, and to extend to them the high boons of civilization and christianity.

It has been observed that the different tribes of natives of North America, resemble each other very much in stature and complexion, in manners and customs; a general description of these will therefor be sufficient.

The stature of an Indian, is generally that of the medial stature of the Anglo Americans; the Osages are said to form an exception to this rule, being somewhat taller. They are almost universally straight and well proportioned; their limbs are clean, but less muscular than those of the whites, and their whole appearance strongly indicative of effeminacy. In walking, they invariable place one foot directly before the other––the toes never verging from a right line with the heel. When traveling in companies, their manner of marching is so peculiar as to have given rise to the expression, “Indian file;” and while proceeding in this way, each carefully places his foot in the vestige of the foremost of the party, so as to leave the impression of the footsteps of but one. They have likewise in their gait and carriage something so entirely different from the gait and carriage of the whites, as to enable a person to pronounce on one at a considerable distance. The hair of an Indian is also strikingly different from that of the whites. It is always black and straight, hangs loose and looks as if it were [27] oiled. There is a considerable resemblance in appearance, between it and the glossy black mane of a thoroughbred horse; though its texture is finer.

In the squaws there exist, the same delicacy of proportion, the same effeminacy of person, the same slenderness of hand and foot, which characterise the female of refined society; in despite too of the fact, that every laborious duty and every species of drudgery, are imposed on them from childhood. Their faces are broad, and between the eyes they are exceedingly wide; their cheek bones are high and the eyes black in both sexes––the noses 30 of the women inclining generally to the flat nose of the African; while those of the men are more frequently aquiline than otherwise.

Instances of decrepitude and deformity, are rarely known to exist among them: this is probably owing to the manner in which they are tended and nursed in infancy. It is not necessary that the mother should, as has been supposed, be guilty of the unnatural crime of murdering her decrepid or deformed offspring––the hardships they encounter are too great to be endured by infants not possessed of natural vigor, and they sink beneath them.

Their countenances are for the most inflexible, stern and immovable. The passions which agitate or distract the mind, never alter its expression, nor do the highest ecstacies of which their nature is susceptible, ever relax its rigidity. With the same imperturbability of feature, they encounter death from the hand of an enemy, and receive the greetings of a friend.

In their intercourse with others, they seem alike insensible to emotions of pleasure and of pain; and rarely give vent to feelings of either. The most ludicrous scenes scarcely ever cause them to laugh, or the most interesting recitals draw from them more than their peculiar monosyllabic expression of admiration.

In conversation they are modest and unassuming; indeed taciturnity is as much a distinguishing trait of Indian character, as it ever was of the Roman. In their councils and public meetings, they never manifest an impatience to be heard, or a restlessness under observations, either grating to personal feeling or opposite to their individual ideas of propriety: on the contrary they are still, silent and attentive; and each is heard with the respect due to his years, his wisdom, his experience, or the fame which his exploits may have acquired him. [28] A loud and garrulous Indian is received by the others with contempt, and a cowardly disposition invariably attributed to him––

is as much and truly an apothegm with them as with us. 31

Their taciturnity and irrisibility however, are confined to their sober hours. When indulging their insatiate thirst for spirit, they are boisterous and rude, and by their obstreperous laughter, their demoniacal shrieks and turbulent vociferations, produce an appalling discord, such as might well be expected to proceed from a company of infernal spirits at their fiendish revels; and exhibit a striking contrast to the low, monotonous tones used by them at other times.

There can be no doubt that the Indians are the most lazy, indolent race of human beings. No attempt which has ever been made to convert them into slaves, has availed much. The rigid discipline of a Spanish master, has failed to overcome that inertness, from which an Indian is roused only by war and the chase––Engaged in these, he exhibits as much activity and perseverance, as could be displayed by any one; and to gratify his fondness for them, will encounter toils and privations, from which others would shrink. His very form indicates at once, an aptitude for that species of exercise which war and hunting call into action, and an unfitness for the laborious drudgery of husbandry and many of the mechanic arts. Could they have been converted into profitable slaves, it is more than probable we should never have been told, that “the hand of providence was visible in the surprising instances of mortality among the Indians, to make room for the whites.”

In their moral character many things appear of a nature, either so monstrous as to shock humanity, or so absurd as to excite derision; yet they have some redeeming qualities which must elicit commendation. And while we view with satisfaction those bright spots, shining more brilliantly from the gloom which surrounds them, their want of learning and the absence of every opportunity for refinement, should plead in extenuation of their failings and their vices. Some of the most flagrant of these, if not encouraged, have at least been sanctioned by the whites. In the war between the New England colonies and the Narragansetts, it was the misfortune of the brave Philip, after having witnessed the destruction of the 32 [29] greater part of his nation, to be himself slain by a Mohican. After his head had been taken off, Oneco, chief of the Mohicans, then in alliance with the colonists, claimed that he had a right to feast himself on the body of his fallen adversary. The whites did not object to this, but composedly looked on Oneco, broiling and eating the flesh of Philip––and yet cannibalism was one of their most savage traits of character.

This was a general, if not an universal custom among the Indians, when America became known to the whites. Whether it has yet entirely ceased is really to be doubted: some of those who have been long intimate with them, affirm that it has not; though it is far from being prevalent.

The Indians are now said to be irritable; but when Europeans first settled among them, they were not more irascible than their new neighbors. In their anger however, they differ very much from the whites. They are not talkative and boisterous as these are, but silent, sullen and revengeful. If an injury be done them, they never forget, they never forgive it. Nothing can be more implacable than their resentment––no time can allay it––no change of circumstances unfix its purpose. Revenge is to them as exhilarating, as the cool draught from the fountain, to the parched and fevered lips of a dying man.

When taking vengeance of an enemy, there is no cruelty which can be exercised, no species of torture, which their ingenuity can devise, too severe to be inflicted. To those who have excited a spirit of resentment in the bosom of an Indian, the tomahawk and scalping knife are instruments of mercy. Death by the faggot––by splinters of the most combustible wood, stuck in the flesh and fired––maiming and disemboweling, tortures on which the soul sickens but to reflect, are frequently practiced. To an enemy of their own color, they are perhaps more cruel and severe, than to the whites. In requiting upon him, every refinement of torture is put in requisition, to draw forth a sigh or a groan, or cause him to betray some symptom of human sensibility. This they never effect. An Indian neither shrinks from a knife, nor 33 winces at the stake; on the contrary he seems to exult in his agony, and will mock his tormentors for the leniency and mildness of their torture.[2]

[30] Drinking and gambling are vices, to which the Indians, as well as the whites, are much addicted. Such is their fondness for spirit of any kind that they are rarely known to be sober, when they have it in their power to be otherwise. Neither a sense of honor or of shame has been able to overcome their propensity for its use; and when drunk, the ties of race, of friendship and of kindred are too weak, to bind their ferocious tempers.

In gambling they manifest the same anxiety, which we see displayed at the card table of the whites. The great difference seems to be, that we depend too frequently on sleight and dexterity; whereas while they are shaking their gourd neck of half whited plumbstones, they only use certain tricks of conjuration, which in their simplicity they believe will ensure them success. To this method of attaining an object, they have frequent recourse. Superstition is the concomitant of ignorance. The most enlightened, are rarely altogether exempt from its influence––with the uninformed it is a master passion, swaying and directing the mind in all its operations.

In their domestic economy, Indians are, in some respects, like the rude of all countries. They manifest but little respect for the female; imposing on her not only the 34 duties of the hut, but also the more laborious operations of husbandry; and observing towards them the hauteur and distance of superior beings.

There are few things, indeed, which mark with equal precision, the state of civilization existing in any community, as the rank assigned in it to females. In the rude and barbarous stages of society, they are invariably regarded as inferior beings, [31] instruments of sensual gratification, and unworthy the attention and respect of men. As mankind advance to refinement, females gradually attain an elevation of rank, and acquire an influence in society, which smoothes the asperities of life and produces the highest polish, of which human nature is susceptible.

Among the Indians there is, however rude they may be in other respects, a great respect always paid to female chastity. Instances in which it has been violated by them, if to be found at all, are extremely few. However much the passion of revenge may stimulate to acts of cruelty, the propensities of nature never lead them to infringe the virtue of women in their power.

The general character of the Indians, was more estimable, when they first became known to Europeans, than it is at present. This has been ascribed to the introduction of ardent spirits among them––other causes however, have conspired to produce the result.

The cupidity of those who were engaged in commerce with the natives, too frequently prompted them to take every advantage, for self aggrandizement, which they could obtain over the Indians. In the lucrative traffic carried on with them, the influence of honesty was not predominant––the real value of the commodity procured, was never allowed; while upon every article given in exchange, extortion alone affixed the price. These examples could not fail to have a deteriorating effect upon their untutored minds; and we find them accordingly losing their former regard for truth, honesty and fidelity; and becoming instead deceitful, dishonest and treacherous. Many of their ancient virtues however, are still practised by them. 35

The rights of hospitality are accorded to those who go among them, with a liberality and sincerity which would reflect credit on civilized man. And although it has been justly said that they rarely forgive an enemy, yet is it equally true that they never forsake their friends; to them they are always kind, generous and beneficent.

After the ceremony of introduction is over,[3] a captive enemy, [32] who is adopted by them, is also treated with the utmost humanity and attention. An Indian cheerfully divides his last morsel with an adopted son or brother; and will readily risk life in his defence. Such indeed, is the kindness which captives thus situated invariably receive, that they frequently regret the hour of their redemption, and refuse to leave their red brethren, to return and mingle with the whites.

As members of a community, they are at all times willing to devote their every faculty, for the good of the whole. The honor and welfare of their respective tribes, are primary considerations with them. To promote these, they cheerfully encounter every privation, endure every hardship, and face every danger. Their patriotism is of the most pure and disinterested character; and of those who have made us feel so sensibly, the horrors of savage warfare, many were actuated by motives which would reflect honor on the citizens of any country. The unfortunate Tecumseh was a remarkable example of the most ardent and patriotic devotion to his country.

Possessed of an acute and discerning mind, he witnessed the extending influence of the whites, with painful solicitude. Listening with melancholy rapture, to the traditionary accounts of the former greatness of his nation, and viewing in anticipation the exile or extinction of his race, his noble soul became fired with the hope that he might retrieve the fallen fortune of his country, and restore it to its pristine dignity and grandeur. His attachment to his tribe impelled him to exertion and every nerve was strained in its cause.

36

Determined if possible to achieve the independence of his nation, and to rid her of those whom he considered her oppressors, he formed the scheme of uniting in hostility against the United States, all the tribes dwelling east of the Mississippi river. In the prosecution of this purpose, he travelled from Mackinaw to Georgia,[4] and with wonderful adroitness practised on the different feelings of his red brethren. Assuming at times the character of a prophet, he wrought powerfully on their credulity and superstition.––Again, depending on the force of oratory, the witchery of his eloquence drew many [33] to his standard. But all was in vain––His plans were entirely frustrated. He had brought none of his auxiliaries into the field; and was totally unprepared for hostilities, when his brother, the celebrated Shawanese prophet, by a premature attack on the army under Gen. Harrison, at an inauspicious moment, precipitated him into a war with the United States.

Foiled by this means, Tecumseh joined the standard of Great Britain in the war of 1812; and as a Brigadier General in her army, lost his life, bravely supporting the cause which he had espoused. He deserved a better fate; and but for prejudice which is so apt to dim the eye and distort the object, Tecumseh would, most probably, be deemed a martyr for his country, and associated in the mind with the heroes of Marathon and Thermopylæ.

To contemplate the Indian character, in a religious point of view, is less gratifying than to consider it in regard to the lesser morals. At the period of the settlement of Western Virginia, excepting the Moravians, and a few others who had been induced by the zeal and exertions of Roman catholic missionaries to wear the cross, the Indians north west of the Ohio river, were truly heathens. They believed indeed in a First Cause, and worshiped the Good Spirit; but they were ignorant of the great truths of Christianity, and their devotions were but superstitious acts of blind reverence. In this situation they remain 37 generally at the present day, notwithstanding the many laudable endeavors which have been made to christianize them.

Perhaps there was never a tribe in America, but believed in the existence of a Deity; yet were their ideas of the nature and attributes of God, not only obscure, but preposterous and absurd. They believe also in the existence of many inferior deities, whom they suppose to be employed as assistants in managing the affairs of the world, and in inspecting the actions of men. Eagles and Owls are thought by some to have been placed here as observers of the actions of men; and accordingly, when an eagle is seen to soar about them by day, or an owl to perch near them at night, they immediately offer sacrifice, that a good report may be made of them to the Great Spirit.

They are likewise believers in the immortality of the soul; and have such an idea of a future state of existence, as accords with their character and condition here. Strangers to [34] intellectual pleasures, they suppose that their happiness hereafter will consist of mere sensual gratifications; and that when they die, they will be translated to a delightful region, where the flowers never fade, nor the leaves fall from the trees; where the forests abound in game, and the lakes in fish, and where they expect to remain forever, enjoying all the pleasures which delighted them here.[5]

38

In consequence of this belief, when an Indian dies, and is buried, they place in the grave with him, his bow and arrows and such weapons as they use in war, that he may be enabled to procure game and overcome an enemy. And it has been said, that they grieve more for the death of an infant unable to provide for itself in the world of spirits, than for one who had attained manhood and was capable of taking care of himself. An interesting instance of this is given by Major Carver, and furnishes at once, affecting evidence of their incongruous creed and of their parental tenderness. Maj. Carver says:

“Whilst I remained with them, a couple whose tent was near to mine, lost a son about four years old. The parents were so inconsolable for its loss, and so much affected by its death, that they pursued the usual testimonies of grief with such uncommon vigor, as through the weight of sorrow and loss of blood, to occasion the death of the father. The mother, who had been hitherto absorbed in grief, no sooner beheld her husband expire, than she dried up her tears, and appeared cheerful and resigned.

“As I knew not how to account for so extraordinary a transition, I took an opportunity to ask her the reason of it. She replied, that as the child was so young when it died, and unable to support itself in the country of spirits, both she and her husband had been apprehensive that its situation would be far from pleasant; but no sooner did she behold its father depart for the same place, and who not only loved the child with the tenderest affection, but was a good hunter and [35] able to provide plentifully for its support, than she ceased to mourn. She added that she saw no reason to continue her tears, as the child was now happy under the protection of a fond father; and that she had only one wish remaining to be gratified, and that was a wish to be herself with them.”[6]

In relation to the Indian antiquities so frequently met 39 with in America, much doubt still exists. When and for what purpose many of those vast mounds of earth, so common in the western country, were heaped up, is matter of uncertainty. Mr. Jefferson has pronounced them to be repositories of the dead; and many of them certainly were designed for that purpose; perhaps all with which he had become acquainted previous to the writing of his notes of Virginia. Mr. Jefferson did not deem them worthy the name of monuments. Since the country has been better explored, many have been discovered justly entitled to that appellation, some of which seem to have been constructed for purposes other than inhumation.[7] These are frequently met with in the valley of the Mississippi, and are said to extend into Mexico. The most celebrated works of this class, are believed to be those at Circleville in Ohio, which have so frequently been described, and are justly considered memorials of the labor and perseverance of those by whom they were erected.

There is a tradition among the Indians of the north, which if true would furnish a very rational solution to the question, “for what purpose were they constructed?” According to this tradition about “two thousand two hundred years, before Columbus discovered America, the northern nations appointed a prince, and immediately after, repaired to the south and visited the Golden city, the capital of a vast empire. After a time the emperor of the south built many forts throughout his dominions, and extending them northwardly almost penetrated the lake Erie. This produced much excitement. The people of the north, afraid that they would be deprived of the country on the south side of the great lakes, determined to defend it against the infringement of any foreign people; long and bloody wars ensued which lasted about one 40 hundred years. The people of the north, being more skillful in the use of bows and arrows, and capable of enduring hardships which proved fatal to those of the south, gained the conquest; and all the towns and forts, which had been erected by their enemy, were totally destroyed and left in a heap of ruins.”[8]

The most considerable of those tumuli or sepulchral mounds, which are found in Virginia, is that on the bottoms of Grave creek, near its entrance into the Ohio, about twelve miles below Wheeling, and is the only large one in this section of the country. Its diameter at the base, is said to be one hundred yards, its perpendicular height about eighty feet, and the diameter at its summit, forty-five feet. Trees, of all sizes and of various kinds, are growing on its sides; and fallen [36] and decayed timber, is interspersed among them; a single white oak rises out of a concavity in the centre of its summit.[9]

Near to Cahokia there is a group (of about two hundred) of these mounds, of various dimensions.[10] The largest of these is said to have a base of eight hundred yards circumference, and an altitude of ninety feet. These and the one mentioned as being on Grave creek and many smaller ones in various parts of the country, were no doubt places of inhumation.[11]––Many have been opened, and found to contain human bones promiscuously thrown together. Mr. 41 Jefferson supposed the one examined by him, (the diameter of whose base was only forty feet and height twelve) to contain the bones of perhaps a thousand human beings, of each sex and of every age. Others have been examined, in which were the skeletons of men of much greater stature, than that of any of the Indians in America, at the time of its discovery, or of those with whom we have since become acquainted.

It is a well known fact, that since the whites became settled in the country, the Indians were in the habit of collecting the bones of their dead and of depositing them in one general cemetery; but the earth and stone used by them, were taken from the adjacent land. This was not invariably the case, with those ancient heaps of earth found in the west. In regard to many of them, this singular circumstance is said to be a fact, that the earth, of which they are composed, is of an altogether different nature, from that around them; and must, in some instances, have been carried a considerable distance. The tellurine structures at Circleville are of this sort; and the material of which they were constructed, is said to be distinctly different, from the earth any where near to them.

The immensity of the size of these and many others, would induce the supposition that they could not have been raised by a race of people as indolent as the Indians have been, ever since a knowledge was had of them. Works, the construction of which would now require the concentrated exertions of at least one thousand men, aided by the mechanical inventions of later days, for several months, could hardly have been erected by persons, so subject to lassitude under labor as they are: unless indeed their population was infinitely greater than we now conceive it to have been. Admitting however, this density of population to have existed, other circumstances would corroborate the belief, that the country once had other inhabitants, than the progenitors of those who have been called, the aborigines of America: one of these circumstances is the uncommon size of many of the skeletons found in the smaller mounds upon the hills.

If the fact be, as it is represented, that the larger skeletons 42 are invariably found on elevated situations, remote from the larger water courses, it would tend to show that there was a diversity of habit, and admitting their cotemporaneous existence, perhaps no alliance or intercourse between those, whose remains they are, and the persons by whom those large mounds and fortifications were erected, [37] these being found only on plains in the contiguity of large streams or inland lakes; and containing only the bones of individuals of ordinary stature.

Another and stronger evidence that America was occupied by others than the ancestors of the present Indians, is to be found in those antiquities, which demonstrate that iron was once known here, and converted to some of the uses ordinarily made of it.

In graduating a street in Cincinnati, there was found, twenty-five feet below the surface of the earth, a small horse shoe, in which were several nails. It is said to present the appearance of such erosion as would result from the oxidation of some centuries. It was smaller than would be required for a common mule.[12]

Many are the instances of pieces of timber found, various depths below the surface of the earth, with the marks of the axe palpably visible on them.[13] A sword too, said to have been enclosed in the wood of the roots of a tree not less than five hundred years old, is preserved in Ohio as a curiosity. Many other instances might, if necessary, be adduced to prove, that implements of iron were in use in this country, prior to its occupation by the whites. Now if a people once have the use of that metal, it is far 43 from probable that it will ever after be lost to them: the essential purposes to which it may be applied, would preserve it to them. The Indians however, ’till taught by the Europeans, had no knowledge of it.

Many of the antiquities discovered in other parts of the country, show that the arts once flourished to an extent beyond what they have ever been known to do among the Indians. The body found in the saltpetre cave of Kentucky, was wrapped in blankets made of linen and interwoven with feathers of the wild turkey, tastefully arranged. It was much smaller than persons of equal age at the present day, and had yellowish hair. In Tennessee many walls of faced stone, and even walled wells have been found in so many places, at such depths and under such circumstances, as to preclude the idea of their having been made by the whites since the discovery by Columbus.

[38] In this state too, have been found burying grounds, in which the skeletons seem all to have been those of pigmies: the graves, in which the bodies had been deposited, were seldom three feet in length; yet the teeth in the skulls prove that they were the bodies of persons of mature age.

Upon the whole there cannot be much doubt, that America was once inhabited by a people, not otherwise allied to the Indians of the present day, than that they were descendants of him, from whom has sprung the whole human family.

44

[39] CHRONICLES

OF

BORDER WARFARE.

CHAPTER I.

At the time when Virginia became known to the whites, it was occupied by many different tribes of Indians, attached to different nations. That portion of the state lying north west of the Blue ridge, and extending to the lakes was possessed by the Massawomees. These were a powerful confederacy, rarely in amity with the tribes east of that range of mountains; but generally harrassing them by frequent hostile irruptions into their country. Of their subsequent history, nothing is now known. They are supposed by some to have been the ancestors of the Six Nations. It is however more probable, that they afterwards became incorporated with these, as did several other tribes of Indians, who used a language so essentially different from that spoken by the Six Nations, as to render the intervention of interpreters necessary between them.

As settlements were extended from the sea shore, the Massawomees gradually retired; and when the white population reached the Blue ridge of mountains, the valley between it and the Alleghany, was entirely uninhabited. This delightful region of country was then only used as a hunting ground, and as a highway for belligerant parties of different nations, in their military expeditions against each other. In consequence of the almost continued hostilities between the northern and southern Indians, these expeditions were very frequent, and tended somewhat to retard the settlement of the valley, and render a residence 45 in it, for some time, insecure and unpleasant. Between the Alleghany mountains and the Ohio river, within the present limits of Virginia, there were some villages interspersed, inhabited by small numbers of Indians; the most [40] of whom retired north west of that river, as the tide of emigration rolled towards it. Some however remained in the interior, after settlements began to be made in their vicinity.

North of the present boundary of Virginia, and particularly near the junction of the Alleghany and Monongahela rivers, and in the circumjacent country the Indians were more numerous, and their villages larger. In 1753, when Gen. Washington visited the French posts on the Ohio, the spot which had been selected by the Ohio company, as the site for a fort, was occupied by Shingess, king of the Delawares; and other parts of the proximate country, were inhabited by Mingoes and Shawanees.[1] When the French were forced to abandon the position, which they had taken at the forks of Ohio, the greater part of the adjacent tribes removed farther west. So that when improvements were begun to be made in the wilderness of North Western Virginia, it had been almost entirely deserted by the natives; and excepting a few straggling hunters and warriors, who occasionally traversed it in quest of game, or of human beings on whom to wreak their vengeance, almost its only tenants were beasts of the forest.

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In the country north west of the Ohio river, there were many warlike tribes of Indians, strongly imbued with feelings of rancorous hostility to the neighboring colonists. Among the more powerful of these were the Delawares, who resided on branches of Beaver Creek, Cayahoga, and Muskingum; and whose towns contained about six hundred inhabitants––The Shawanees, who to the number of 300, dwelt upon the Scioto and Muskingum––The Chippewas, near Mackinaw, of 400––Cohunnewagos, of 300, and who inhabited near Sandusky––The Wyandots, whose villages were near fort St. Joseph, and embraced a population of 250––The Twightees, near fort Miami, with a like population––The Miamis, on the river Miami, near the fort of that name, reckoning 300 persons––The Pottowatomies of 300, and the Ottawas of 550, in their villages near to forts St. Joseph and Detroit,[2] and of 250, in the towns near Mackinaw. Besides these, there were in the same district of country, others of less note, yet equally inimical to the whites; and who contributed much to the annoyance [41] of the first settlers on the Ohio, and its tributaries.

There were likewise the Munsies, dwelling on the north branch of the Susquehanna, and on the Allegheny river––The Senecas, on the waters of the Susquehanna, Ontario and the heads of the Allegheny––The Cayugas, on Cayuga lake, and the Sapoonies, who resided in the neighborhood of the Munsies. In these tribes was an aggregate population of 1,380 souls, and they likewise aided in committing depredations on our frontiers.

Those who ventured to explore and occupy the south western portion of Virginia, found also in its vicinity some powerful and warlike tribes. The Cherokees possessed what was then, the western part of North Carolina and numbered 2,500––The Chicasaws, residing south of the Cherokees, had a population of 750––and the Catawbas, on the Catawba river in South Carolina with only 150 persons. These latter were remarkably adventurous, enterprising and courageous; and notwithstanding their remote situation, and the paucity of their numbers, frequently traversed the valley of Virginia, and even penetrated the country on the north branch of the Susquehanna, and between the Ohio river and lake Erie, to wage war upon the Delawares. Their success in many of these expeditions, is preserved in the traditions of the Delawares, who continue to regard them as having used in these wars, a degree of cunning and stratagem, to which other tribes have never approached.[3]

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Such were the numbers and positions of many of the proximate Indians about the time settlements were begun to be [42] made on the Monongahela river and its branches. Anterior to this period, adventurers had explored, and established themselves, in various parts of the valley between the Blue ridge and the Alleghany mountain. That section of it, which was included within the limits of the Northern-Neck, was the first to become occupied by the whites. The facilities afforded by the proprietor for obtaining land within his grant, the greater salubrity of climate and fertility of soil near to the Blue ridge, caused the tide of emigration to flow rapidly towards the upper country, and roll even to the base of that mountain. Settlements were soon after extended westwardly across the Shenandoah, and early in the eighteenth century Winchester became a trading post, with sparse improvements in its vicinity.

About this time Thomas Morlin, a pedlar trading from Williamsburg to Winchester, resolved, in conjunction with John Salling a weaver also from Williamsburg, to prosecute an examination of the country, beyond the 48 limits which had hitherto bounded the exploratory excursions of other adventurers. With this view, they travelled up the valley of the Shenandoah, and crossing James river and some of its branches, proceeded as far as the Roanoke, when Salling was taken captive by a party of Cherokees. Morlin was fortunate enough to elude their pursuit, and effect a safe retreat to Winchester.

Upon the return of the party by whom Salling had been captivated, he was taken to Tennessee where he remained for some years. When on a hunting expedition to the Salt licks of Kentucky, in company with some Cherokees to kill buffalo, they were surprised by a party of Illinois Indians, with whom the Cherokees were then at war, and by them Salling was again taken prisoner. He was then carried to Kaskaskia, when he was adopted into the family of a squaw whose son had been killed in the wars.

While with this nation of Indians, Salling frequently accompanied parties of them on hunting excursions, a considerable distance to the south. On several occasions he went with them below the mouth of the Arkansas, and once to the Gulph of Mexico. In one of those expeditions they met with a party of Spaniards, exploring the country and who needed an interpreter. For this purpose they purchased Salling of his Indian mother for three strands of beads and a Calumet. Salling attended them to the post at Crevecœur; from which [43] place he was conveyed to fort Frontignac: here he was redeemed by the Governor of Canada, who sent him to the Dutch settlement in New York, whence he made his way home after an absence of six years.[4]

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The emigration from Great Britain to Virginia was then very great, and at the period of Salling’s return to Williamsburg, there were then many adventurers, who had but recently arrived from Scotland and the north of England. Among these adventurers were John Lewis[5] and John 50 Mackey. Salling’s return excited a considerable and very general interest, and drew around him many, particularly of those who had but lately come to America, and to whom the narrative of one, who had been nearly six years a captive among the Indians, was highly gratifying. Lewis and Mackey listened attentively to the description given of the country in the valley, and pleased with its beauty and fertility as represented by Salling, they prevailed on him to accompany them on a visit to examine it more minutely, and if found correspondent with his description to select in it situations for their future residence.

Lewis made choice of, and improved, a spot a few miles below Staunton, on a creek which bears his name––Mackey on the middle branch of the Shenandoah near Buffalo-gap; and Salling in the forks of James river, below the Natural Bridge, where some of his descendants still reside. Thus was effected the first white settlement ever made on the James river, west of the Blue ridge.[6]

In the year 1736, Lewis, being in Williamsburg, met with Benjamin Burden (who had then just come to the country as agent of Lord Fairfax, proprietor of the Northern Neck,) and on whom he prevailed to accompany him home. Burden remained at Lewis’s the greater part of the summer, and on his return to Williamsburg, took with him a buffalo calf, which while hunting with Samuel[7] and Andrew Lewis (elder sons of John) they had caught and afterwards tamed. He presented this calf to Gov. Gooch, who thereupon entered on his journal, [44] an order, authorizing Burden to locate conditionally, any quantity of land not exceeding 500,000 acres on any of the waters of the 51 Shenandoah, or of James river west of the Blue ridge. The conditions of this grant were, that he should interfere with no previous grants––that he should settle 100 families, in ten years, within its limits; and should have 1000 acres adjoining each cabin which he should cause to be built, with liberty to purchase any greater quantity adjoining, at the rate of fifty pounds per thousand acres. In order to effect a compliance with one of these conditions, Burden visited Great Britain in 1737; and on his return to Virginia brought with him upwards of one hundred families of adventurers, to settle on his grant.[8] Amongst these adventurers were, John Patton, son-in-law to Benjamin Burden, who settled on Catawba, above Pattonsburg[9]––Ephraim 52 McDowell, who settled at Phoebe’s falls––John, the son of Ephraim,[10] who settled at Fairfield, where Col. James McDowell now lives––Hugh Telford, who settled at the Falling spring, in the forks of James river––Paul Whitley, who settled on Cedar creek, where the Red Mill now is––Archibald Alexander, who settled on the North river, opposite Lexington––Andrew Moore, who settled adjoining Alexander––Sampson Archer, who settled at Gilmore’s spring, east of the Bridge tavern, and Capt. John Matthews, who married Betsy Archer, (the daughter of Sampson) settled where Major Matthews lives, below the Natural bridge.

Among others who came to Virginia at this time, was an Irish girl named Polly Mulhollin. On her arrival she was hired to James Bell to pay her passage; and with whom she remained during the period her servitude was to continue. At its expiration she attired herself in the habit of a man; and with hunting shirt and mocassons, went into Burden’s grant, for the purpose of making improvements and acquiring a title to land. Here she erected thirty cabins, by virtue of which she held one hundred acres adjoining each. When Benjamin Burden the younger, came on to make deeds to those who held cabin rights, he was astonished to see so many in the name of Mulhollin. Investigation led to a discovery of the mystery, to the great mirth of the other claimants. She resumed her christian name and feminine dress, and many of [45] her respectable descendants still reside within the limits of Burden’s grant.[11]

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When in 1752 Robert Dinwiddie came over as governor of Virginia, he was accompanied by many adventurers; among whom was John Stuart,[12] an intimate friend of Dinwiddie, who had married the widow of John Paul (son of Hugh, bishop of Nottingham.) John Paul, a partizan of the house of Stuart, had perished in the siege of Dalrymple castle in 1745, leaving three children––John, who became a Roman catholic priest and died on the eastern shore of Maryland––Audley, who was for ten years an officer in the British colonial forces,––and Polly, who married Geo. Matthews, afterwards governor of Georgia. Mrs. Paul (formerly Jane Lynn, of the Lynns of Loch-Lynn, a sister to the wife of John Lewis) had issue, by Stuart, John, since known as Col. Stuart of Greenbrier, and Betsy, who became the wife of Col. Richard Woods of Albemarle.

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The greater part of those, who thus ventured “on the untried being” of a wilderness life, were Scottish presbyterian dissenters; a class of religionists, of all others perhaps, the most remarkable for rigid morality. They brought with them, their religious principles, and sectional prepossessions; and acting upon those principles acquired for their infant colony a moral and devotional character rarely possessed by similar establishments. While these sectional prepossessions, imbibed by their descendants, gave to their religious persuasions, an ascendency in that section of country, which it still retains.

They were also men of industry and enterprise. Hunting, which too frequently occupies the time, of those who make the forest their dwelling place, and abstracts the attention from more important pursuits, was to them a recreation––not the business of life. To improve their condition, by converting the woods into fertile plains, and the wilderness into productive meadows, was their chief object. In the attainment of this, they were eminently successful. Their individual circumstances became prosperous, and the country flourishing.

The habits and manners of the primeval inhabitants of any country, generally give to it a distinctive character, which marks it through after ages. Notwithstanding the influx of strangers, bringing with them prejudices and prepossessions, at variance with those of the community in which they come; [46] yet such is the influence of example, and such the facility with which the mind imbibes the feelings and sentiments of those with whom it associates, that former habits are gradually lost and those which prevail in society, imperceptibly adopted by its new members.

In like manner, the moral and religious habits of those who accompanied Burden to Virginia, were impressed on the country which they settled, and entailed on it that high character for industry, morality and piety, which it still possesses, in an eminent degree. 55

At the time of the establishment of this settlement, all that part of Virginia lying west of the Blue ridge mountains, was included in the county of Orange. At the fall session, of the colonial legislature, in 1738, the counties of Frederick and Augusta were formed out of Orange––The country included within the boundaries of the Potomac river, on the north, the Blue ridge, on the east, and a line, to be run from the head spring of Hedgman, to the head spring of Potomac, on the south and west, to be the county of Frederick; the remainder of the state west of the Blue ridge, to the utmost limits of Virginia to constitute Augusta. Within its limits were included, not only a considerable portion of Virginia as she now is, but an extent of territory out of which has been already carved four states, possessing great natural advantages, and the extreme fertility of whose soil, will enable them to support perhaps a more dense population, than any other portion of North America of equal dimensions. As the settlements were extended, subdivisions were made, ’till what was once Augusta county south east of the Ohio river, has been chequered on the map of Virginia, into thirty-three counties with an aggregate population of 289,362.[13]

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[48] About the year 1749 there was in the county of Frederick, a man subject to lunacy, and who, when laboring under the influence of this disease, would ramble a considerable distance into the neighboring wilderness. In one of these wanderings he came on some of the waters of Greenbrier river. Surprised to see them flowing in a westwardly direction, on his return to Winchester he made known the fact, and that the country abounded very 57 much with different kinds of Game. In consequence of this information two men, recently from New England, visited the country and took up their residence on the Greenbrier river.

Having erected a cabin and being engaged in making some other improvements, an altercation arose, which caused Stephen Suel,[14] one of them, to forsake the cabin and abide for some time in a hollow tree not far from the improvement, which was still occupied by his old companion. They were thus situated in 1751, when John Lewis, of Augusta and his son Andrew were exploring the country; to whom Suel made known the cause of their living apart, and the great pleasure which he experienced now in their morning salutations, when issuing from their respective habitations; whereas when they slept under the same roof, none of those kindly greetings passed between them. Suel however did not long remain in the vicinity of Martin, the other of the two adventurers; he moved forty miles west of his first improvement, and soon after fell a prey to Indian ferocity. Martin is said to have returned to the settlements.

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There was no other attempt made by the whites, to improve the Greenbrier country for several years. Lewis and his son thoroughly examined it; and when permission was given to the Greenbrier company (of which John Lewis was a member) to locate 100,000 acres, on the waters of this river, they became agents to make the surveys and locations. The war between France and England in 1754 checked their proceedings; and when they, on the restoration of peace, would have resumed them, they were interdicted by a royal proclamation, issued in 1761, commanding all those who had made settlements on the western waters to remove from them; and those who were engaged in making surveys to desist. Sound policy requiring, that a good understanding should be maintained with the Indians (who claimed the country) to prevent a further cooperation on their part with France.[15]

Previous to the issuing of this proclamation, some families had moved to Greenbrier and made two settlements––the one on Muddy creek, the other in the Big-Levels. These, disregarding the command of his royal majesty and rather regardless of their own safety, remained until they were destroyed by the Indians, in 1763.[16] From this time ’till 1769 Greenbrier was altogether uninhabited. Capt. John Stuart and a few other young men, then began to settle and improve the country; and although attempts were subsequently made by the Indians to exterminate them, yet they ever after continued in possession of it.

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[49] In the year 1756 settlements were also made on New river and on Holstein.[17] Among the daring adventurers who effected them, were Evan Shelby, William Campbell, William Preston and Daniel Boone, all of whom became distinguished characters in subsequent history. Thomas Walden,[18] who was afterwards killed on Clinch river and from whom the mountain dividing Clinch and Powel rivers derived its name, was likewise one of them. The lands taken up by them, were held as “corn rights” each acquiring a title to an hundred acres of the adjoining land, for every acre planted in corn.

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Nearly cotemporaneous with these establishments, was that at Galliopolis, on the north western bank of the Ohio, and below Point Pleasant, at the mouth of the Great Kenhawa. This was made by a party of French Jesuits, by whom the Indians were incited to make incursions, and commit the most enormous barbarities on the then frontiers.[19] This place and the mouth of Great Sandy were the chief points of rendezvous for the Ohio Indians. From the former of these places they would ascend the Kenhawa and Greenbrier rivers, and from thence crossing the mountains enter into Augusta; or after having ascended the Kenhawa, go up the New river, from which they would pass over to the James and Roanoke. From the mouth of Great Sandy they would ascend that river, and by the way of Bluestone fall over on the Roanoke and New river. From those two points, expeditions were frequently made by the Indians, which brought desolation and death into the infant settlements of the south west, and retarded their growth very much. In the spring of 1757 nearly the whole Roanoke settlement was destroyed by a party of Shawanees, who had thus made their way to it.

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That portion of the valley of Virginia in which establishments were thus begun to be made, was at that time one continued forest; overspreading a limestone soil of great fertility; and intersected by rivers affording extensive bottoms of the most productive alluvial land. Indeed few rivers of equal size, are bordered with as wide and fertile levels of this formation of earth, as those which water that section of country: the Roanoke particularly affords large bodies of it, capable of producing in great abundance hemp, tobacco and the different kinds of grain usually grown. In the country generally, every species of vegetable, to which the climate was congenial, grew with great luxuriancy; while the calcareous nature of the soil, adapted it finely to the production of that kind of grain, to which European emigrants were mostly used.

The natural advantages of the country were highly improved by the persevering industry of its inhabitants. Its forests, felled by untiring labor, were quickly reduced to profitable cultivation, and the weeds which spontaneously sprang from the earth, were soon succeeded by the various grasses calculated to furnish the most nutritious food, for the lowing herds with which their farmers were early stocked; these yielded a present profit, and laid the sure foundation [50] of future wealth. Some of the most extensive and successful graziers of Virginia, now inhabit that country; and reap the rich reward of their management 62 and industry, in the improved and more contiguous market of Richmond.

In the infancy of these establishments, their only market was at Williamsburg. Thither the early settlers packed their butter and poultry, and received in exchange salt, iron, and some of the luxuries of life; their beef and other stock was taken to the same place. In the process of time, as the country east of the Blue ridge became more improved, other markets were opened to them; and the facilities of communication were gradually increased. Their successors have already derived great advantage from those improvements; and the present generation will not only witness their farther extension, but most probably see the country first tenanted by Lewis and his cotemporaries, a great thoroughfare for the produce of several of the western states––a link of communication between the Chesapeak bay and the Gulph of Mexico.

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[51] CHAPTER II.

The tract of country usually denominated North Western Virginia, includes the counties of Brook, Ohio, Tyler, Wood, Lewis, Randolph, Preston, Harrison and Monongalia, covering an area of 8,887 square miles, and having a population, according to the census of 1830, of 78,510 souls. These counties, with a portion of Pennsylvania then deemed to be within the limits of Virginia, constituted the district of West Augusta; and was the last grand division of the state, to become occupied by the whites. This was perhaps owing to natural causes, as well as to the more immediate proximity of hostile Indians.