Monette, John W. History of the Discovery and Settlement of the Valley of the Mississippi, by the Three Great European Powers, Spain, France and Great Britain, and the Subsequent Occupation, Settlement, and Extension of Civil Government by the United States, Until the Year 1846, in two volumes, Volume II . New York: Harper and Brothers, Publishers, 1846. [format: book], [genre: history]. Permission: Schingoethe Center for Native American Cultures, Aurora University
Persistent link to this document: http://lincoln.lib.niu.edu/file.php?file=monette2.html

Argument. — Severe Winter of 1780-81. — Scarcity in Kentucky. — Kentucky divided into three Counties. — Indian Hostilities on Bear-grass Creek. — Attack on Boone's and M'Afee's Stations. — Indians contemplate utter Destruction of Kentucky Settlements. — Chickasâs attack Fort Jefferson in 1780. — Counties of Kentucky organized. — General Clark's gun-boat Defense on the Ohio River. — Abundant Crops of 1781. — Indian Hostilities renewed in the Spring of 1782. — Estill's Defeat. — Last Survivor of his Party. — Indian Hostilities continued. — Laherty's Defeat. — Indian Invasion, under Simon Girty, on Bryant's Station. — Disastrous Battle of Blue Licks. — Colonel Logan buries the Dead. Upper Ohio. — Settlements of West Augusta harassed. — Wheeling Campaign against the Moravian Towns. — Horrible Massacre of peaceable Indians. — Former Position of the Moravian Towns. — Previous Admonitions neglected. — Disastrous Campaign against Moravians on Sandusky. — Colonel Crawford and Dr. Knight captured. — Execution and horrid Torture of Colonel Crawford. — British Agency the Source of Indian Hostilities. — Attack on Wheeling Fort, and on Rice's Fort. Lower Ohio. — General Clark invades the Indian Country in 1782. — Effects of this Invasion. — Domestic Prosperity of Kentucky. — Settlements extend North of Licking. — Flood of Emigration sets into Kentucky. — The "District of Kentucky" organized. — Peace with Great Britain announced. — Extent of the Kentucky Settlements in 1783. — Population and Moral Condition of the Settlements. — Settlements extend North of Licking River in 1784-85. — Settlements in Western Virginia.

[A.D. 1781.] THE winter of 1780-81 was unusually protracted and severe; Indian depredations and murders for a time were suspended, and the people enjoyed a temporary respit from harassing alarms; the crops of the previous year had been greatly injured, and, in many cases, entirely destroyed by the Indians; the domestic stock of cattle and hogs had been killed; the supplies of salt, and other indispensable requisites

of new settlements, had been exhausted, and the whole population of Kentucky was now on the verge of absolute want. Such was the state of things in the settlements, when opening spring enabled the savages to resume hostilities. The whole line of frontier settlements in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Kentucky was simultaneously assailed by marauding parties of Indians distributed along this extensive frontier. Terror and consternation were only the precursors of havoc and desolation. The whole country was again thrown into a state of preparation to repel the invaders at every point.

Agreeably to the provisions of an act of the Legislature of the preceding year, the county of Kentucky was divided into three counties, designated by the act as the "counties of Jefferson, Fayette, and Lincoln." The county of Jefferson comprised all the country lying on the Ohio River, between the Kentucky and Green Rivers, presenting a frontier of more than two hundred miles along the Ohio. The county of Fayette comprised the country on the northeast side of Kentucky River, and extending to the Big Sandy, presenting a frontier coast of equal extent on the Ohio. The county of Lincoln comprised all the southeastern portion of the present State of Kentucky. These extensive counties were organized with a civil and military government, similar to other counties in Virginia, and, like many of the western counties, they comprised extensive regions of uninhabited country. ¹¹⁶

The first Indian incursions into Kentucky took place early in March, and were directed against Jefferson county. Several persons were killed during that month. Among the most conspicuous of those who suffered in the opening campaign were Colonel Lynn, and Captains Tipton and Chapman, of the Bear-grass settlements. A party of fifteen men having set out in pursuit of one of the marauding bands of Indians, was surprised near the Ohio, on the waters of Bear-grass Creek, and were severely defeated by the Indians, with the loss of nine men killed, and one wounded.

In April, a station settled by Squire Boone, near the site of the present town of Shelbyville, was alarmed by signs of Indians, and the occupants deserting it, sought safety at the stronger settlements on Bear-grass Creek. While on this route, a party of men, encumbered with the women, children, household

goods, and cattle, were attacked by the Indians, who killed several persons, and dispersed the remainder in the recesses of the forest. To revenge this outrage, Colonel John Floyd, with twenty-five men collected from the vicinity of the falls, went in pursuit of the Indians, but soon fell into an ambuscade, and was defeated with the loss of half his men. ¹¹⁷

Early in May, a party of Indians appeared before M'Afee's Station, and, after a brisk skirmish with a few men, who retreated to the fort, a fierce attack was commenced, and continued with vigor for nearly two hours, when persons from other stations in the vicinity, apprised of the attack, came to the relief of their friends, who were thus enabled to defeat the Indians within one mile of the fort. In this affair, one white man was killed and one mortally wounded; the Indians lost six or seven killed, besides their wounded. ¹¹⁸

M'Afee's Station, although a frontier post, was not again molested by them. The hostile incursions of these marauding bands against other points of the settlements also became less frequent during the remainder of this year, and Kentucky again, for a time, enjoyed comparative tranquillity from Indian invasions; but it was only the deceptive calm before the desolating storm; the savages were only preparing for more important operations.

The Indians had perceived that their detached predatory incursions by small parties, however harassing they might be to the whites, did not check the increase of their settlements. They saw that, in spite of all their hostilities, all their marauding incursions, and all their persevering efforts in this way to check the advance of the whites from the east side of the mountains, their numbers daily increased by the arrival of additional emigrants; the number of dwellings and fortified stations likewise increased, and the surveyors were again busily employed measuring the land. This latter circumstance, from the first occupancy by the whites, had always been a hated omen and a sure precursor of the entire loss of their territories. Nor had the whites been satisfied in defending their settlements east and south of the Ohio; they had sent several expeditions into the heart of the Indian country north of the Ohio, and had burned their towns, laid waste their fields, and reduced their women and children to wretchedness and want. Their favorite

hunting-grounds south of the Ohio were already in the occupancy of the whites, who were never known to recede from their advances; and so long as their forts remained, the people would hold the country, and the surveyors would measure off the land for fields and residences. It was in vain to invade their settlements by small bands, who could not take and destroy the forts. Hence it was evident to them that they must give up the contest in Kentucky, or they must bring their whole united force, and, by one grand effort, recover the country, with the destruction of the forts and the extermination of the whites. The latter plan was adopted by the leading chiefs of the Shawanese tribe, and during the remainder of the year they were unremitting in their efforts to bring about a general concert of action among all the northwestern tribes for a grand exterminating invasion during the next summer. In this they had the approbation and encouragement of British agents and officers at Detroit and on the Maumee, who assured them of the powerful aid of their great ally "George III., by the grace of God king of Great Britain," &c. ¹¹⁹

While the plan of this grand invasion was in contemplation, and the preparations were secretly progressing, it was deemed expedient to keep the frontier settlements in a state of alarm and apprehension, with a renewal of desultory hostilities by detached bands.

In the mean time, Kentucky was threatened with a war from the Southern Indians. Fort Jefferson, as has been before observed, had been built the previous year upon the territory of the Chickasâs Indians, without their consent. So soon as it had been known to them, they had formally remonstrated against this invasion of their territory. This remonstrance being disregarded, they prepared to repel the invaders by force. Accordingly, early in the following autumn, when the garrison was reduced to about thirty men, most of whom were invalids, the fort was invested by a large force of Chickasâs Indians, led on by Colbert, a half-breed chief of Scotch extraction. During six days the siege was pressed with much vigor, and frequent assaults were made by the savages, who were as often driven back by the artillery loaded with grape and musket-balls. At length the garrison was relieved from its perilous condition by the arrival of General Clark, with a re-enforcement from Kaskasia

and a supply of ammunition and provisions. The Indians were thus compelled to abandon the siege and retire. ¹²⁰

Soon afterward, the Governor of Virginia issued instructions to General Clark to abandon and dismantle the fort, it being unnecessary for defense, and serving only as a source of hostility with the Indians. The order was obeyed, and the hostility of the Chickasâs ceased. ¹²¹

The ultimate plans of the northwestern savages were unknown to the people of Kentucky until late in the following winter. In the mean time, emigrants continued to arrive in great numbers from the western parts of Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland. Population extended, under the protection of new stations, in the more exposed frontier settlements, while organization of the civil government was gradually extended over them, in the establishment of regular county courts, with a qualified jurisdiction in common-plea cases, reserving to the jurisdiction of the district courts near the capital all important civil cases, together with criminal and capital offenses.

General Clark having been appointed to superintend the general defense of Kentucky, and relieved from his command on the Mississippi, now began to put in operation his plans of frontier defense for the settlements near the Ohio River.

A portion of his plan of defense comprised a large floating battery of gun-boats, mounted with several pieces of artillery, and garrisoned by a strong detachment of light troops and riflemen, who could debark at any point to encounter the savages hovering near the Ohio. This battery was removed from point to point on the Ohio, between the mouth of Licking River and the "falls," which had now become the most exposed frontier of Kentucky. This new species of defense greatly interrupted the operations of the Indians against the Kentucky settlements, and afforded comparative security against their frequent incursions.

The year 1781 had yielded abundant crops of wheat, corn, and vegetables of all kinds, and plenty once more smiled upon the new settlements. The autumn brought with it great numbers of emigrants for permanent residence; and many of them were in good circumstances, and well qualified to be valuable members of the new and rising state, whose intellect and talents contributed greatly toward the building up of the new commonwealth a few years afterward.

[A.D. 1782.] Early in the following spring, the Indians resumed their hostile incursions against the settlements, and predatory bands began to infest the vicinities of the frontier stations in March and April. On the 20th of March a party of twenty-five Wyandots invested "Estill's Station," on the south side of Kentucky River. Having killed Miss Gass, and all the cattle in the vicinity, they retired with one captive negro. Captain Estill, ignorant of their numbers, proceeded to raise a party of twenty-five men, and set off in pursuit of the retiring enemy. Following their trail as far as Hingston's Fork, a few miles below Little Mountain, and in the vicinity of Mount Sterling, Montgomery county, on the 22d of March he came suddenly upon the enemy. The Indians were Wyandots, a tribe that are never known to retreat or to surrender. A desperate contest immediately commenced. Each opposing party being equal in numbers, the contest was, indeed, so many individual rencounters, "each man to his tree, and every man to his man." A more sanguinary conflict has not been seen in all the West. For two hours the deadly strife raged, and half the combatants were among the slain. Victory leaned toward the white man, when an unfortunate manoeuver, if not "an inglorious flight," deprived Captain Estill of one half his surviving force. Lieutenant Miller, with six men, supposed to have been endeavoring to gain the enemy's flank, disappeared from the contest. This gave the Indians the ascendancy, and the strife was soon finished. Captain Estill, in a deadly struggle with a powerful warrior, received the knife of his antagonist in his heart, just after his arm gave way at a former fracture, and that instant the Indian received his death from Joseph Proctor's unerring rifle. ¹²²

The survivors were compelled to make a precipitate retreat, leaving nine of their companions and their commander dead upon the ground.

Nearly one half of the Indians had likewise fallen, when Miller's defection turned the scale in their favor.

The usefulness and popularity of Captain Estill; the deep and universal sensibility excited by the premature death of a

citizen so gallant and so beloved; the character of his associates in the battle; the masterly skill and chivalric daring displayed in the contest; the grief and despondence produced by the catastrophe, all contribute to give to "Estill's defeat" a most signal notoriety among the early settlers.

The memory of the brave but unfortunate Captain Estill is perpetuated by the state in the name of one of her counties. ¹²³

The last surviving hero of this memorable defeat was Joseph Proctor, who had distinguished himself by his deliberate courage in the contest. He lived, beloved by all, until the 2d of December, 1844, when he died, in the ninetieth year of his age, full of honors, in Estill county, Kentucky, where he had been a Christian minister more than fifty years. In commemoration of his youthful valor and his heroic deeds, he was buried with military honors by the volunteer companies of two counties, and attended by a concourse of one thousand of his fellow-citizens. A native of North Carolina, he had been a prominent and courageous defender of Kentucky from 1778 to 1782, and had fought side by side with Boone, Calloway, and Logan.

Among the disasters which befell the Ohio frontier this spring, we must not omit the melancholy fate of a detachment of regular troops, which was descending the river to Fort Steuben, at the Falls of Ohio, to re-enforce the garrison at that place. Captain Laherty, with one hundred and seven men, had advanced as far as the mouth of the Great Miami, when he was attacked by a large body of Indians a short distance below that stream. After a brave resistance, he was finally compelled to escape with the loss of nearly half his detachment, slain by the savages. This defeat is commemorated on the Ohio by a small creek near the scene of the disaster, which is still known as Laherty's Creek.

The Shawanese, Delawares, and Wyandots continued to make their incursions, and to spread terror among the frontier stations. A party of more than twenty Indians presented themselves before Hoy's Station, destroyed the cattle, took several prisoners, and then retired. Soon after, Captain Holder, with seventeen men, set out in pursuit of them, and after following their trail about twenty miles, he overtook the Indians on the second day, near the Upper Blue Licks. A sharp conflict ensued, when Captain Holder and his party were

compelled to retreat precipitately, with the loss of four men killed and wounded. The loss of the Indians was not ascertained. ¹²⁴

Indian depredations and successes against Kentucky became alarming. They were effected generally by parties of five or six penetrating into the heart of the country, prowling unseen for days until a fatal stroke could be made. Large bodies of savages, however, hovered near the Ohio River, whose spies observed all the movements on the river, and, when opportunity offered, never failed to make a bold effort before they retired.

Early in the spring, a man was shot by an Indian in a field adjoining the present site of Lexington; the Indian, however, was killed while scalping his victim. ¹²⁵ Another white man was killed and scalped by an Indian about one mile from Lexington, on the road to M'Connel's Station. Other occurrences of a similar character were only the preludes to more important movements on the part of the hostile Indians.

In the mean time, the grand confederate army of Indians was assembling at Chillicothe, from which they were to proceed to the invasion of Kentucky. About the first of August, the savages, to the number of five hundred warriors, collected from the northwestern tribes, as well as from the Cherokees, were assembled at Old Chillicothe, all painted and equipped for war. They were led on by two degenerate white men, known as Simon Girty and Colonel M'Key, men in the British interest at Detroit, and who had been active in stirring up the northwestern Indians to commit their horrid atrocities upon the border population.

On the eve of their departure for the invasion of Kentucky, Simon Girty made a harangue in the presence of the Indian host, and encouraged them, with all his powers of eloquence, to seize upon the present occasion to exterminate the long-knife rebels, the enemies of their father, the British king, from their favorite hunting-grounds, which the Great Spirit had prepared for his red children. After inflaming their avarice and revenge to the highest pitch, he ceased, and the deep tones of the war-whoop were their approving response. ¹²⁶

In a few days, the frontier settlements, ignorant of the extent of the hostile preparations against them, as well as of the route by which they were approaching, were alarmed

by the advanced parties of the invading army. On the 15th of August this formidable host of savage warriors presented themselves before Bryant's Station, on the south bank of Elk-horn Creek, not far from the present road leading from Lexington to Maysville. The station comprised about forty cabins, in three parallel lines, and connected by strong palisades, in the usual form of a stockade fort. The garrison consisted of about fifty men, some of whom were absent at different points in the vicinity when the attack was first made. The fort was closely invested for two days, during which time the besiegers killed all the cattle, and kept up a continual fire of small arms upon the fort, besides numerous attempts to fire the buildings, by shooting blazing arrows upon the roofs, and throwing burning torches upon the wooden enclosures. On the fourth day, after having sustained a loss of about thirty warriors in their different assaults, and having failed to effect any serious injury to the fort and garrison, they retired toward the lower Blue Licks, passing along the Great Buffalo Trace, by the way of Martin's and Ruddle's Stations, which they had destroyed two years before. In their retreat, contrary to the customary Indian tactics, they made no effort to conceal their trace, but rather seemed to invite pursuit and encounter.

In the mean time, Colonel Todd, of Lexington, had assembled several companies, under their respective officers, amounting in all to one hundred and eighty-two mounted men, for the relief of the station. On the 18th they reached the station, and found the Indians had retired. Without waiting for further re-enforcements, which were expected, it was resolved to march in immediate pursuit of the enemy. Not an Indian was seen until the troop reached the banks of Licking River, at the Lower Blue Licks. After some delay, disregarding the prudent counsel of Colonel Daniel Boone, who believed an ambuscade near, the whole army marched forward across the river, under the fatal influence of Major M'Gary's example: he, spurring his horse forward, exclaimed, "Those who are not cowards, follow me, and I will show you where the Indians are!" The whole troop passed the ford without order or concert, and entered upon a narrow ridge almost encircled by the river, and covered with stunted forest-trees and cedar undergrowth. The Indians, who lay concealed on each side of the ridge, opened a heavy fire upon the advancing

column, which was placed fairly between two fires, each of which more than equalled their own number. The men fought bravely for about ten minutes, when they were thrown into confusion, and every man used his utmost exertions to force his way back to the opposite side of the river, through the narrow descent to the ford. As they crowded promiscuously along, the fire of the pursuing Indians did prodigious execution, mowing down the men by scores. The Indians pressed forward in every direction, and, crossing the river above and below the ford, attempted to intercept their retreat. The flight necessarily became a perfect rout, and the victorious Indians continued the pursuit for twenty miles. Such was the "disastrous battle of the Blue Licks," which continued only about ten minutes. Sixty men were killed on the spot, and seven were taken captive by the savages. Among the slain were Colonel Todd, Lieutenant-colonel Trigg, and Majors M'Bride and Harlan.

On the 20th of August, Colonel Logan, who was only a few hours behind the advanced detachment, reached the battleground with his command of four hundred and fifty men; but the work was done; the fate of his friends and fellow-soldiers was sealed. The most he could do was to view and weep over the scene of carnage, and bury the mangled and disfigured bodies of the slain. ¹²⁷ The loss of the Indians was said to be about equal to that of the Kentuckians, or about sixty killed and wounded. This was the severest blow that Kentucky had yet experienced from the hostile Indians. The whole country was filled with consternation, grief, and mourning, for in this bloody tragedy every family near Lexington had lost a member.

While these things were transpiring south of the Ohio, hostilities had been almost incessant upon the eastern side of the river, above and below Wheeling. The settlements along the river and upon the Monongahela had been greatly harassed by repeated incursions, which had not been intermitted, as usual, during the winter months. The weather, during the greater part of February, had been uncommonly fine, so that the war parties from the Sandusky River had visited the settlements earlier than usual. Several families had been killed in the latter part of February. From the early period at which these fatal visitations had taken place, many were led to believe that

the murderers were either Moravians from the Muskingum, or that the war parties had spent the winter at the Moravian towns, to be convenient for their spring operations. If either conclusion were correct, the Moravian towns were dangerous to the safety of the settlements, and should be destroyed. Under this impression, an expedition was hastily prepared for the fatal enterprise. Each man furnished himself with his own arms, ammunition, and provisions, and some with horses. In this manner, nearly ninety volunteers assembled, under the command of Colonel David Williamson, in the Mingo Bottom, on the west side of the Ohio River. The second day's march brought them to the middle Moravian town, called Gnadenhutten, where they encamped for the night. In the morning, having ascertained that there were Indians on each side of the river, the men were divided into three parties, so as completely to surround the town from both sides of the river. When they reached the town, they found a large party of Indians in the field gathering corn. Professing peace and friendship for the Indians, they informed them that they had come to take them to Fort Pitt for their protection. The Indians immediately surrendered, delivered up their arms, and, appearing highly pleased with the prospect of their removal, began immediately to prepare breakfast for the white men and for themselves previous to their journey. A detachment was sent to Salem, another town not far off, to bring the Indians of that town also. They, like those of the first town, were found gathering their corn, and were carried to Gnadenhutten. The whole number from both towns were confined in two houses under a strong guard.

After the prisoners were thus secured, a council of war was held to decide upon their doom. The officers, unwilling to incur the whole responsibility of the terrible decision, agreed to refer the question to the whole number of men engaged in the expedition. The men were accordingly paraded in a line, and the commandant, Colonel Williamson, then put the following question to them: "Shall the Moravian Indians be taken prisoners to Pittsburgh, or shall they be put to death? All those who are in favor of saving their lives, step forward and form a front rank." Only sixteen or eighteen stepped forward. The line for vengeance greatly outnumbered that of mercy, and the fate of the innocent and defenseless Indians was sealed. They were informed that they must prepare for death. They

were not surprised at the summons; for, from the moment they were placed in the guard-house, they anticipated their fate, and had commenced their devotions with hymns, prayers, and exhortations to each other to place a firm reliance upon the mercy of the Savior of men.

"When their fate was announced to them, these devoted people embraced and kissed each other, and, bedewing each other's faces and bosoms with their tears, asked pardon of the brothers and sisters for any offense they may have committed through life. Thus at peace with God and each other, they replied to those who, impatient for the slaughter, demanded ‘whether they were ready to die,’ that, having commended their souls to God, they were ready to die." ¹²⁸

"Suffice it to say, that in a few minutes these two slaughterhouses, as they were then called, exhibited in their ghastly interior the mangled and bleeding remains of these poor unfortunate people, of all ages and sexes, from the aged, gray-headed parent down to the helpless infant at its mother's breast; all dishonored by the fatal wounds of the tomahawk, war-club, mallet, spear, and scalping-knife." ¹²⁹

"The number of the slain, as reported by the men on their return from the campaign, was about eighty-eight; the Moravian account, which is more correct, no doubt, makes it ninety-six. Of these, sixty-two were grown persons, of whom one-third were women; the remaining thirty-four were children. Of this entire number, about five were shot on their first approach to surround the town. A few of the men, who were supposed to be warriors, were taken from the slaughter-houses to be tomahawked." These suffered without resistance, except one, who resisted and attempted to escape, after turning upon his executioner; but he was at length dispatched by several shots from the fire-arms.

After the massacre was finished, fire was set to the town, which consumed the whole village, including the two slaughterhouses and the dead bodies within them.

The Indians of the upper town, called Schoenbrunn, having received intelligence of what was transpiring at the lower towns, fortunately made their escape by deserting their town. The detachment sent to secure them, finding the town deserted, loaded themselves with plunder and returned to their companions.

As this is a memorable instance of the horrors of Indian warfare, and of the excesses and barbarities into which men raised in a civilized country may be carried by rage, prejudice, or fear, it may merit a further passing remark.

As Dr. Doddridge remarks, the whole campaign evinced a perfect disregard of military discipline and of military foresight. Had the Indians been disposed to make a firm resistance, in all probability the whole number in the expedition might have been cut off. Nothing would have been easier, had the Indians been so disposed; and yet they submitted to be "led like sheep to the slaughter," by men who well knew that no resistance would be made. Some of the men under the command of Colonel Williamson were probably the last who could have been induced to march against the hostile towns. They knew the pacific principles of the Moravians, and knew that blood and plunder might be their recompense, without incurring danger.

The situation of these Indians, both as respects the whites and their native countrymen, was one of peculiar danger. These villages had been commenced, under the superintendence of the Moravian missionaries, in the year 1772, and were first composed partly of emigrants from the missions of these people on the Big Beaver, at Freidenshutten, and from Wyalusing and Sheshequon, on the Susquehanna. ¹³⁰ They soon increased in numbers and prosperity, until they comprised four hundred people. In the summer of 1774, during Lord Dunmore's war, they had been much annoyed by the parties of hostile Indians, in their passage to and from the white settlements, as well as by frequent rumors of hostile intentions against them by the whites; yet they continued their labors, their schools, and their religious exercises without intermission.

During the Revolutionary war, their situation became more critical and dangerous. In this war England had associated the tomahawk and scalping-knife of the savage with her own arms against the frontier settlements near the Ohio; and these allies had spread the most horrid barbarities along the whole extent of the western border. From this cause, the settlers of Western Pennsylvania and Virginia had endured the severest hardships and privations. They had been cooped up in small stockade forts; they had cultivated their little fields under the protection of armed guards; they had lived from day to day with sentinels on duty; they had been compelled to hear, if not to witness, the rumors of almost daily murders, or the still more horrid captivity of their friends and neighbors, the burning of their houses, and the plunder of their property. Almost unprotected by the eastern population, who were fully absorbed in resisting the civilized armies of Great Britain, they were compelled to bear the whole burden of the western war, and supply their means, choose their officers, and to conduct the war in their own manner. In this way they were often driven to acts which the government was bound to disavow. Constantly habituated to violence and insubordination, the people naturally became wanton and lawless in their contests with the Indians.

The Moravian villages were situated nearly midway between the white settlements and the hostile towns, being from sixty to eighty miles from each. Thus they were viewed by the whites as the "half-way houses of the warriors." Situated, as they were, between two contending races, it was no easy task to preserve a strict neutrality. Their pacific feelings and their aversion to the shedding of blood brought them into difficulties with both parties. When they sent their runners to Fort Pitt to inform our people of the approach of the war parties; when they received and fed, secreted and sent home such of our people as had escaped from savage captivity, they were guilty of breaches of their neutrality to the hostile Indians. If they afforded the warriors a resting-place and food, it was a breach of neutrality to the whites; yet they were so situated that the war parties could compel them to furnish all they had, and the whites required the same.

They were first suspected by the hostile Indians and the English commandant at Detroit as being confederates of the

American Congress, and to have induced the Delawares and others not to espouse the cause of Great Britain against the provinces. The frequent failure of their war parties was ascribed to the Moravians, who had sent runners to Fort Pitt to give the alarm.

A Delaware chief, during the spring of 1781, had fully informed the missionaries and their flocks of their imminent danger, both from Indians and from the whites, and had advised a removal to a place of safety. They disregarded the admonition; and in the fall of the same year a party of three hundred warriors broke up their settlements, plundered their towns, and took the missionaries prisoners. The Moravian Indians were carried to the Sandusky Plains, and there turned loose to shift for themselves, while the missionaries were carried to Detroit. In February following, about one hundred and fifty of these Moravian Indians had returned to their deserted villages on the Muskingum, to procure corn to keep their families and cattle from starving. Of these, ninety-six fell into the hands of Williamson's party, and were murdered. Under a similar jealousy on the part of the hostile Indians, they had been on the point of being murdered once or twice before. In the fall of 1781, such had become the exasperation of the whites against the position occupied by the Moravians, that the militia had determined to go and break up their settlement. For this purpose, a detachment had been sent out under Colonel David Williamson, to induce them to move further off, or to bring them to Fort Pitt. The few Indians found in their villages had been carried to Fort Pitt, and, after a short detention, had been dismissed. The people had censured Colonel Williamson for his lenity toward them. This may account for his non-interference in the next campaign.

As a palliation to the massacre of these Indians, it may be said that many of those engaged in the campaign, who were men of standing and worth, had lost one or more of their families or friends by the hands of the savages. In their towns several articles were found which had been plundered from their own houses or from those of their neighbors. One man is said to have found the bloody clothes of his wife and children, who had been murdered a few days before. Those articles, no doubt, had been purchased of the hostile Indians.

The majority of those in the expedition took no hand in the

massacre, but turned away with horror from the scene, their voice and their displeasure being silenced by the clamor and violence of a lawless minority. ¹³¹ Colonel Williamson himself was a brave and honorable man.

The next hostile movement on the part of the white inhabitants on the Upper Ohio and on the Monongahela took place late in May following. As we have already observed, less than half of the Moravian Indians were at their old towns on the Muskingum when Colonel Williamson and his party marched against them. The remainder, who had been carried off by the hostile Indians to Sandusky, had settled themselves upon that river, not far from the towns of the hostile Wyandots. The plan of destroying the remainder of the Moravians, together with the Wyandots, was conceived soon after the return of the expedition under Colonel Williamson. Preparations for a campaign against the Sandusky towns were immediately put in operation, with the design of making "a dash" upon them early in the summer.

The long continuance of the war and the innumerable outrages perpetrated by the Indians upon the settlements, the horrid murders which had been so often committed upon their families, neighbors, and relatives, whenever they ventured out of the forts and fortified stations, had at length produced in the minds of the frontier people a thirst for indiscriminate revenge, with a proportionate debasement of the moral feeling toward the authors of all their troubles; and having once tasted the sweets of a bloody revenge, obtained without risk or loss, they determined to wreak their vengeance indiscriminately upon every Indian, whether a professed friend or foe.

A strong force was accordingly raised to make a rapid and secret march to the Sandusky towns. For the sake of secrecy and dispatch, the whole were to be mounted upon the best horses they could procure; each man furnished himself with arms and every necessary outfit except ammunition, which was supplied by the lieutenant-colonel of Washington county. On the 25th of May, four hundred and eighty volunteers from the vicinity of the Ohio, and from Washington county, in Pennsylvania, mustered at the old Mingo towns, ¹³² on the west side

of the Ohio, seventy-five miles below Fort Pitt. Here they elected their commander for the expedition. The candidates were Colonel Williamson and Colonel Crawford. The latter was elected to command, although with reluctance he accepted the office.

All things being in readiness, the expedition commenced its march westward along "Williamson's Trail" to the old Moravian towns on the Muskingum. Here, finding plenty of corn in the fields for their horses, they encamped during the night. Soon after the army had halted near these towns, Colonel Crawford had a presage of evil in the utter disregard of military order by the men under his command. To illustrate this, one fact will suffice. Three men having walked beyond the encampment, discovered two Indians and fired upon them. This brought the men from the camp, regardless of military discipline and the authority of their commander, in a most irregular and tumultuous manner, to see what had happened. Next morning they continued their march without any important incident, and on the 6th of June their guides conducted them to the site of the Moravian villages; but the place was deserted, and the Indians had removed to the Scioto. A few huts among the high grass were all that remained. This was on the upper branches of the Sandusky. They were at the ultimate destination of the expedition, and neither blood nor plunder had slaked their fury. A council of officers was held, and they determined to march one day further toward Upper Sandusky, and, if no Moravians were found, they were to retreat immediately. They proceeded a little over half a day's march, when the advanced guard was driven back by a large body of Indians concealed in the high grass. A general fire from both sides immediately ensued, and continued incessantly until dark, when night separated the combatants. During the evening the Indians had been completely dislodged from a copse of woods in the prairie, which they had perseveringly attempted to hold. During these movements, the vigilance and bravery of Major Leet were conspicuous; and the detachment had lost but three men killed, and several wounded.

At night both armies retired behind a line of fires, mutually to avoid surprise and lay upon their arms. During the next day the Indians seemed busily engaged traversing the plains in every direction, but made no attack upon the whites. In

the mean time, another council of war was held, and a speedy-retreat was decided to be the only path of safety, as the Indians were hourly increasing in numbers. Colonel Williamson, who accompanied the expedition, had proposed to march with a strong detachment and attack the Upper Sandusky towns; but the commander prudently declined to divide his forces, saying, "We must stay together, and do the best we can." The dead were buried, and their graves concealed from the search of the Indians, and every thing was in readiness to retreat after night. The Indians perceived the object in contemplation, and about sunset attacked the army in every direction except that next the Sandusky, with great fury and in great force. Early in the night, after a circuitous march of two miles, they changed their direction, eluding their assailants in the dark, and retreated rapidly toward the trail by which they had advanced the day before. During the next day they pursued their retreat without loss of time, and were but little annoyed by pursuit. But the army became divided into small parties, in hope of eluding Indian pursuit. This was a most disastrous resolve: it was the very thing desired by their savage enemies. The Indians, during the whole retreat, paid but little attention to the main body, but dispersed over the whole country, from the Sandusky to the Muskingum, actively pursuing and cutting off the small parties, nearly all of whom were killed, and some almost in sight of the Ohio River. The number killed in this retreat was never known. ¹³³

At the commencement of the retreat, Colonel Crawford, missing his son and several of his family connections, halted to search for them as the line passed on. They were not in the line; and, having fallen behind the retreating column, he was never able to overtake it, on account of the wearied condition of his horse. He traveled all night, first toward the north and then toward the east, to avoid the Indian parties dispersed along the trail in pursuit. Having fallen in company with Dr. Knight and several others, they proceeded until the third day, when they were attacked by a party of Indians, who made Dr. Knight and Colonel Crawford prisoners; the remainder of the party, who were unable to escape, were killed. Dr. Knight and Colonel Crawford were conducted to an Indian camp not far distant, where they found nine fellow-prisoners in charge of seventeen Indians. ¹³⁴

The next day Colonel Crawford and Dr. Knight were conducted by two Delaware chiefs, Pipe and Wingemond, to an Indian village, while four of the other prisoners were tomahawked and scalped at different places on the way. Five others were tomahawked and scalped by a party of squaws and boys near the place designed for Colonel Crawford's execution.

After the colonel was conducted to the place of execution, a post about fifteen feet high was set in the ground, and a large fire of hickory poles was made about eighteen feet from it. He was stripped and ordered to sit down; when he was severely beaten with sticks, and afterward tied to the stake by a rope just long enough to allow him to walk two or three times around the post and then back again. The torture began by shooting a great number of loads of powder upon his body from head to foot. Next they applied the burning ends of the firebrands to different portions of his body, with fiendish mirth at the agony produced; at the same time, the squaws amused themselves by pouring hot embers and coals over his naked body, until the ground within the limit of his tether became covered with live coals and embers, over which he was compelled to walk barefoot.

In the midst of his protracted sufferings, he cast an imploring look at the notorious Simon Girty, whom he had known many years before, and entreated him to take pity upon him, and in mercy shoot him. But Girty, true to his savage nature, taunted him, and with a fiendish smile bade him "entreat someone else." ¹³⁵

After three hours of this kind of torture, he became faint, and fell upon his face; an Indian stepped up and scalped him, after which an old squaw threw a quantity of burning coals on the raw and bloody skull from which the scalp had been torn. After this, he rose and walked once or twice around the post,

and soon after expired. His body was thrown into the flames and consumed to ashes. His son and his son-in-law, Major Harrison, were executed at the Shawanese towns.

Dr. Knight was more fortunate. He was doomed to be burned at a town about forty miles distant, whither he was sent in charge of a young Indian. On the way he sought the first opportunity to rebel, and escaped from his guard. In his subsequent hazardous advance, after suffering all but death and the extreme of famine, he reached the settlements on the Ohio after twenty-one days of toil and hunger. ¹³⁶

Most of the prisoners taken in this campaign were burned to death with cruel tortures, in retaliation, it is supposed, for the massacre of the Moravian Indians. Incidents of personal adventure and imminent peril, among some of those who finally escaped from Indian captivity to the white settlements, are full of thrilling interest, but can not be detailed within the limits of this work.

Thus ended this disastrous campaign, in which the Indians severely retaliated the cruel massacre of the Moravians on the Muskingum. It was the closing campaign on the part of the whites into the Indian country during the Revolutionary war. Undertaken for the purpose of blood and plunder, and not for necessary defense; carried on without the sanction of the government, it was conducted without judgment or strict military discipline, and could not have terminated otherwise than disastrously. If it were presumed that the hostile Indians would not protect their pacific brethren, a wrong estimate was placed on human nature. It was also ascertained that the hostile Indians had observed all their movements, from the first rendezvous on the old Mingo fields until their final disastrous defeat, and had, accordingly, made all their preparations to receive them.

All the horrors of this Indian war, without doubt, are to be ascribed to the inhuman policy of England in employing the savages to murder the defenseless frontier settlements, because they were a portion of the revolted provinces. Thus the most powerful of civilized nations, and whose subjects are most active in disseminating the Gospel, prostituted her power and her resources to encourage the most inhuman barbarities upon innocent women and children, and authorized the

commandants of the western posts to pay the Indians a stipulated price for each scalp and each prisoner, for the purpose of stimulating them to greater exertion against the helpless frontier people. Thus the scalps of the white man, and of his wife and children, under this diabolical policy, were, in the hands of the savages, a current coin, which, at the British posts, served to purchase powder, arms, clothing, and the other necessaries for savage comfort. ¹³⁷ This policy has been denounced and discarded invariably by the government of the United States, which would not permit it among those Indians who chose to range themselves under its banners.

The policy pursued by this more than savage enemy on the western frontier had the effect of debasing many of the western people to the state of savage barbarity; it produced in them that thirst for indiscriminate revenge against the Indian, which caused the commission of barbarities which the government never could approve. "It was a war of mutual but unavailing slaughter, devastation, and revenge, over whose record humanity must drop a tear of regret; but that tear can not efface its disgraceful history." ¹³⁸

Colonel Williamson returned safe from the disastrous Sandusky expedition. Of Colonel Crawford, we may pay him the tribute of one further notice. He was among the first emigrants to the West; he was a man of good heart and sterling worth. He had been a meritorious officer under General Forbes in his march to Fort Duquesne in 1758. ¹³⁹ Colonel George Washington, at that early day, says, "I know him to be a brave and active officer." He afterward served during the war of Pontiac, in defense of the frontier settlements of Pennsylvania, in 1763-64; and he was an efficient officer in the campaign of Lord Dunmore to the Shawanese towns on the Scioto. He afterward settled on the Youghiogeny, became a colonel, and fought on the western frontiers during the Revolutionary war. He was finally selected to command the fatal expedition to the Sandusky River. The Indians, remembering his former active services against their tribes, determined to wreak the whole weight of savage vengeance upon him.

Apprehensive of a renewal of Indian incursions, after the late

disastrous invasion of the Sandusky country, the people near Fish Creek erected a stockade for their common protection on the east bank of the Ohio, at the head of "Cresap's Bottom." This was subsequently known as "Baker's Station."

The campaign of Colonel Crawford was the last invasion of the Indian territory from western Pennsylvania and Virginia during the war of Independence; yet it was not the conclusion of hostilities on the part of the Indians. Encouraged by their recent successes, they determined to carry the war into the white settlements, and to the very doors of those who had invaded their country. Besides the scalping parties which occasionally overrun the settlements in their secret and predatory excursions, the Indians sent a regular army of three hundred warriors to invade and lay waste the enemy's country. During the month of September, this Indian army invested the fort at Wheeling, and, after three days of ineffectual efforts to take or burn it, they retired. Having sent two hundred warriors home, a chief, with one hundred chosen men, made an attack on Rice's Fort, about twelve miles north of Wheeling, on Buffalo Creek. After four hours of fruitless attempts to capture the fort, they endeavored to burn it, setting fire to all the outhouses, barns, and stacks of grain and hay, in hopes fire might thus be communicated to the stockade. Failing in this, they collected the cattle, hogs, and sheep, and killed them near the stockade, by which means the whole air in the vicinity became tainted by the effluvia from their putrid bodies.

After having lost five of their number killed, and several wounded, they retired. This fort was defended by only six effective men, besides some boys and women. Such were the hostile operations on the upper portion of the Ohio in 1782.

Indian depredations and occasional murders were experienced in the Kentucky settlements for some weeks after the disastrous battle at Blue Licks, perpetrated, as was supposed, by a few western Indians who had joined the invading force from Detroit, and were taking the Salt River settlements in their route to the Wabash. The remainder of the Indian army had retired to their towns on the Great Miami tributaries and those of Sandusky, or had gone to Detroit to receive their supplies and presents, and to claim their premiums on their scalps taken from Kentucky.

The terrible blow struck by the savages at the Blue Licks

had roused the people to a determination to inflict signal vengeance upon the hostile towns. Hundreds were eager to engage in a formidable invasion of the Shawanese country; and the habiliments of mourning, daily presented to their view by the friends and surviving relatives of the slain, continued to impress them with the melancholy reflection concerning the late loss of many valuable citizens, who were deeply deplored by all.

To provide for the future security of the settlements against such incursions, it was the desire of the community that General Clark would take command of a mounted regiment for the destruction of the most hostile of the Shawanese towns on the upper tributaries of the Miami and Scioto Rivers. No man possessed the confidence of the people of Kentucky more than General Clark; and as an experienced and energetic commander, he certainly had no rival. He accordingly took measures for the speedy organization of a mounted brigade for the invasion of the Shawanese country.

The brigade was to consist of one thousand mounted men, to be raised partly by a draft and partly by volunteers. It was to embrace two divisions: one under Colonel Logan, from the upper settlements, to rendezvous at Bryant's Station; the other from the lower settlements, to rendezvous at "the falls," under the command of Colonel Floyd. The two divisions were to form a junction at the mouth of Licking River, preparatory to the invasion of the Indian country. The people readily contributed their aid in supplying all the requisites in the way of transportation and supplies for the contemplated expedition, and advanced the greater portion upon the faith of the Commonwealth.

All things having been arranged, the two divisions of the brigade united at the mouth of Licking on the 28th of September, when General Clark assumed the command. On the 30th the line of march was taken up, and the troops crossed the river and entered the Indian country. With the dispatch and celerity so characteristic of all General Clark's military movements, they advanced rapidly up the Miami, and arrived at the first Indian town, more than one hundred and thirty miles from the Ohio, before the enemy had intelligence of their approach. The savages fled with the utmost precipitation, leaving their deserted village to the mercy of the invaders, who

were in close pursuit. The alarm spread rapidly through all the towns up Mad River and as far as the Scioto. The pursuit was continued more than one hundred miles, to the head branches of the Scioto, and in every direction the army encountered nothing but deserted fields and villages; the latter were utterly destroyed by fire, and every vestige of their growing corn was cut up and destroyed. ¹⁴⁰

The loss of the army in this expedition was only two men killed by Indians. Several Indians were killed, and seven warriors were taken prisoners. Although attended with but little loss of life on either side, this expedition resulted in great advantage to the settlements of Kentucky. It inspired confidence in the people, and struck terror into the savages, such as had not been known of any previous invasion from Kentucky. Their principal resources were cut off, and their country desolated by fire. It produced, also, a conviction in the savages that the increasing numbers and power of the whites were such that all hope of exterminating them was abandoned forever; and they never afterward attempted any formidable invasion of Kentucky. The incursions of small detachments and scalping parties also ceased to harass the country, and people began to feel security in their homes.

The attention of the inhabitants, and of the numerous emigrants who were arriving daily, was again engrossed in the selection and acquisition of lands, under every species of warrant or title which had been legalized for the last ten years. Locations of every kind were stretched over the whole country, with but little precision or accuracy of boundaries, and these as vaguely defined. Speculation in land claims became a trade, or, rather, a science, from which sprang a fruitful harvest of contention and litigation in subsequent years. ¹⁴¹

[A.D. 1783.] Agriculture now began to flourish; commerce began to appear; the arts and manufactures connected with agriculture and domestic life became incorporated with the new state of society; labor was rewarded, and employment

given to the industrious; schools sprung up for the education of youth; ministers of the Gospel who had emigrated west consecrated the Sabbath to the service of God and teaching the truths of salvation. Farmers began to prosper; their fields were enlarged, their stock of domestic animals began to multiply, and a market was already open for their surplus produce. Money began to circulate, and property assumed a definite value.

About the first of June, immigrants began to arrive by hundreds, and spread like a flood of fertilizing water over the whole country. Merchandise from Philadelphia and Baltimore, transported in wagons across the mountains, by way of Ligonier and Cumberland, to Pittsburgh and Brownsville, and thence boated down the Ohio, in keel-boats and arks, to Limestone and the falls, began to arrive in the new settlements. The same summer Kentucky was greeted with the first dry-goods store, opened in Louisville by Daniel Broadhead, from Brownsville, on the Monongahela. The second store was not opened until the following year, when Colonel James Wilkinson, of Maryland, also from Brownsville, ¹⁴²opened the first dry-goods store in Lexington.

The population of all the settlements, up to the year 1783, exceeded twelve thousand souls. This number was greatly augmented by the daily arrivals during the succeeding summer; and the spring of 1784 found the entire number increased to more than twenty thousand souls.

The intercourse through the country was extended by the opening of new roads from the river to the interior settlements. Such was the prosperous condition of Kentucky when the news of peace arrived, confirming the independence of the United States, and diffusing universal joy throughout the West.

Military law ceased to be paramount to the civil authority. The garrisons in all the western posts were soon afterward reduced, and only twenty-five privates were retained at Fort Pitt, to guard the stores. ¹⁴³

[A.D. 1784.] Hitherto the principal settlements were north and south of Kentucky River, and upon the sources of Salt River; also upon the southwestern tributaries of Licking River, and near the Ohio, below the mouth of Kentucky, and above "the Falls." Those upon the branches of Bear-grass Creek were increasing rapidly.

The country on the north side of Licking had been abandoned to the Indians on account of its exposed situation. The war-path to the settlements on the Kentucky River traversed this region nearly in the route now occupied by the great road from Lexington to Maysville, and had rendered any settlements insecure in this quarter.

Early in the spring, the three counties of Kentucky, agreeably to an act of the Legislature of Virginia, had been organized into a judicial district, known as the "District of Kentucky." The district court was invested with civil and criminal jurisdiction, as other circuit courts of Virginia. ¹⁴⁴ This court held its first term at Harrodsburg; the subsequent terms were to be holden at Danville, where a log court-house and a log jail were soon afterward erected, amply sufficient for the security of criminals and debtors. From this time, Danville became a noted point for public meetings, and the great political discussions which agitated this country for five years afterward.

It was early in the winter when the whole country was electrified by the news of peace with Great Britain, and the recognition of the independence of the United States.

Wearied and impoverished by a war of nearly eight years, the American people heard with rapture the news of peace, and rejoiced in the beaming prospects before them. Those upon the sterile and sandy shores of the Atlantic desired retirement and ease upon the fertile and virgin lands which lay inviting their occupancy upon the waters of the Ohio, and where they might repose in the peaceful shades of agricultural retirement. From North Carolina, by way of Cumberland Gap, the tide of emigration was rapidly pouring into Kentucky and the present State of Tennessee, while Virginia and the states north of her were sending their colonies upon the Upper Ohio, and by way of Limestone and "the Falls" into Kentucky.

As yet Kentucky was a large, isolated settlement. The region on the east, for nearly five hundred miles, through the sources of the Big Sandy and the Kenhawa, was a desolate mountain wilderness. On the west and north, the country, to a boundless extent, was in the occupancy of the native tribes. The region north of Licking, which now sustains a dense and

wealthy population, was then an exposed, sparsely-populated frontier, liable to the continual incursions of marauding bands of savages.

A great portion of Western Virginia was then an unsettled country, having only a few habitations on the Kenhawa, Greenbrier, Elk, and Cheat Rivers, while the country near the Ohio, from Fishing Creek to Licking River, a distance of three hundred miles, was a frontier region too much exposed to Indian incursions to afford a safe residence. In Pennsylvania, north of the Kiskeminetas, and on the Alleghany River to its source, was the heart of the Six Nations, and all the extensive region south of this border was an exposed frontier. The principal settlements of Western Virginia south of Wheeling were upon the head branches of the Monongahela, upon the East and West Forks, and upon Cheat River; also, the head branches of the Great and Little Kenhawas. All that extensive region lying between the Ohio and the west branch of the Monongahela, from thirty to fifty miles in width, had been subject to the continual incursions of the hostile Indians. Clarksburg, near the west branch, was then a frontier settlement. A small military post had been maintained for several years at the mouth of the Kenhawa, known as the "Point;" yet the settlements east of it had been penetrated repeatedly by the war parties, which eluded the military posts on the Ohio, and crossed between the Muskingum and the Kenhawa. ¹⁴⁵

Before the close of the year 1784, the settlements of Kentucky had augmented their population to nearly thirty thousand souls. The people began to take a deep interest in completing the organization of civil government, and were gathering around them the elements of foreign intercourse and domestic wealth. The accumulation of personal property, as well as real estate, began to engage the energies of the recent emigrants; towns were laid off, mills and factories were erected; agriculture and trade began to develop the resources of the country; domestic stock of all kinds were introduced, and were multiplying abundantly; and all began to enjoy the comforts and luxuries of a newly-settled country.

The moral condition of the people was not neglected. Ministers of the Gospel, and religious teachers of every sect and creed, borne along on the tide of emigration, found the field

ripe for the harvest, and the laborers were not few. Societies and churches were organized by the Presbyterians, Methodists, and Baptists, and were subsequently attached to the mother-churches east of the mountains. Schools were established for the education of youth, and the rudiments of learning were freely dispensed among the rising generation.

The people east of the mountains, released from a long and unnatural war, and having only partially recovered from the consequent depression, after peace had been restored with the Indian tribes, sought ease and fortune in the West. The tide of emigration began to set with unprecedented rapidity from the Atlantic settlements across the mountains and down the Ohio River. The roads from Cumberland and Bedford to Pittsburgh and Brownsville were traversed by continued and successive groups of emigrant colonies, with their long lines of family wagons, followed by herds of cattle, hogs, and all kinds of stock, and the necessary appendages for agricultural life.

The mouth of Limestone Creek, the site of the present town of Maysville, had already become a frequented route from the Ohio to the older settlements on the waters of the Kentucky River, comprised in the counties of Nelson, Lincoln, and Fayette. Simon Kenton, the first explorer of this route, had returned from his "station" on the waters of Salt River, and resumed his tomahawk improvement made in 1774. In the autumn of 1784, he commenced a block house and other buildings for a settlement, three miles from Limestone and one mile from the present town of Washington, in Mason county. Early in the following spring, he received an accession of several families, and thus commenced the first permanent settlement in this exposed frontier. For several years subsequently it. was known as "Kenton's Station." The town of Limestone soon sprung up as a noted point of debarkation for emigrants advancing to the central settlements of Kentucky.

About the same time other settlements were begun in other portions of the present county of Mason, although it was not until the year following that Simon Kenton, Arthur Fox, and William Wood laid off the town of Washington. ¹⁴⁶

From this time habitations began to multiply in this quarter of the country, and Indian hostilities had apparently ceased.

"Lee's Station," "Warren's Station," and "Clark's Station" were formed about this time; and emigrants, as they advanced into the interior, began to settle upon all the northern branches of Licking.