STATEMENT OF MRS. STANLEY.

    TO WM. LANG, ESQ. - Being one of the oldest settlers of Seneca county now living, and remembering a great many incidents connected with the early settlement of the county along the Sandusky river, I will comply with your invitation and herby send you a short statement, which you may use, if found appropriate.
                         Respectfully,
                              TABATHA STANLEY.

    "My grand-father came from England, a young man, and single.  His name was Samuel Harris.  My grand-mother's name was Betsey Boner, and she was a native of Ireland.  They were married in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where my father, William Harris, was born in 1760.
     After the war he married Mary Mead, whose father came from Wales.  My father enlisted as a soldier in the revolutionary war when he was but a mere boy, only fourteen years old, as a private, and served during the war to the close.  He never received a pension for his services in the war until after he moved to Seneca county, when Mr. Abel Rawson, one of the pioneer lawyers of Tiffin, procured it for him.
     My parents raised ten children.  Betsey, my oldest sister, was married to David Roberts; Bettie was married to Moses Hunt; brother Augustus was married to Aurelia Clark; Nancy was married to Chambers Mead; Polly married James Eaton; brother Samuel died in what is now Townsend township in Sandusky county, Ohio, in 1826, in the twenty-eighth year of his age, and unmarried; John married Betsey Hays; Minerva married Benjamin Barney; Tabitha, (myself), married Benjain Culver in 1828; and Jane, the youngest of our children of our children, married Anson Gray.  Minerva, Jane and myself were married in this county and were amongst the few first white girls that  were married here at that time.  Barney, Culver and Gray were amongst the few first settlers that located here.
     My father moved from Harrisburgh into Livingston county, in the state of New York, where we lived until the year 1818, and in that year we moved back to Pennsylvania and settled near Meadville, in Crawford county.  Here my sister Nancy was married to Chambers Mead.  She died at Meadville.  When we left Livingston county, New York, to move to Pennsylvania, some of my brothers and sisters were married, and stayed there.  Father and

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another with the rest of us children that were not married - Nancy, Samuel, John, Minerva, Tabitha, Jane, and Marshal Harris - started together.  When we got to Olean Point my father bought a boat, called a scow.  On this he put our goods, wagon and all.  John and myself took three horses and two cows, and drove them overland for Lawrenceburgh.  On the way there a man overtook us, and at his request we let him ride one of the horses, and the rascal ran away with the horse.  There was at that time no road down the valley of the Allegheny.  When we all met at Lawrenceburgh we left the scow, and hitched the horses to the wagon and traveled together to Meadville, where we settled.  Here we stayed about two years; then my brother Samuel and a young man by the name of John Eaton, from the state of New York, started for Ohio on foot, for the purpose of prospecting and exploring the country.  They came to the valley of the Sandusky, and wrote back to us to pack up and come out here; that they had found an excellent country, etc.
     The following winter my father and brother John started for Ohio to meet the boys here, leaving the rest of us at Meadville.  My father was a gunsmith by trade, and brought his tools with him.  He put up a shop on the north east part of a piece of land that afterwards became the property of my husband, Benjamin Culver, and known as the Culver farm, near Fort Seneca.
     In the following spring father and John came back to Meadville, and then we all started for the Sandusky valley, except my sister Nancy, who was then married.  When we got here we found the country a dense wilderness.  We put up with Barney's folks, and moved into the same cabin they occupied, which had been built by William Spicer, who then had moved upon his section in the Seneca reservation, east of the river.  Spicer was an Indian captive, and had a family of half Indian children.  Their names were John, James, Small Cloud, Little Town, and one daughter, who was married to another white captive by the name of Crow.  Spicer was a great help to the new comers, for he had cattle, horses and hogs in large numbers.  He used to let his hand out on shares, and often furnished horses and oxen to farm with.  He sold a great deal of corn to the immigrants; also cattle and hogs, and often let cows out for pay.  He was a good neighbor, ever ready and willing to help the needy.  People often borrowed his horses and oxen to go to the mill.  We had to go to Monroeville or to Cold Creek Mills, to get our grinding done - some thirty miles away, through forest and swamps, without any bridges across the streams, and no road or any other way to guide the traveler but blazed trees.
     The Barney family consisted of West, who was the oldest, and Benjamin, both single, a widowed sister, Mrs. Polly Orr, who afterwards married John Eaton, who came out here with my brother Samuel in 1819, as already stated, and Ann, the youngest sister, who was afterwards married to David Rice, in the fall of 1820.  Benjamin Barney married my sister Minerva in the winter of 1820.  David Smith of Fort Ball, who was then a Justice of the Peace, solemnized the marriage, and played the violin that night at the wedding dance.  Mr. Erastus Bowe came with Mr. Smith to the wedding.  Mr. Bowe was the first settler in Fort Ball.
     The wedding was a rural affair, indeed.  The dancing was done on a pungeon floor.  A pungeon is a plank about six inches thick, split out of a solid

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tion.  Tears came into his eyes when he looked at the old reservation, and he regretted that he had ever left.
     When the Senecas were paid off, Crow received for his improvements nine hundred and fifty dollars, and another Indian paid him fifty dollars on an old debt.  Martin Lane was an interpreter for the Senecas, and went with them to the west, and returned here.
     It is a most remarkable fact, that while it is very hard to make a civilized man out of a savage, the civilized man takes to savage life like a fish to water.
     Col. McIlvain was the chief agent for the Senecas, and often stopped with Lane at the Spicer place.  The Senecas were very slow getting ready to go.  Finally they got their things on the wagons and started.  Spicer was dead before they left here.
     Crow died at his new home of cholera.  White Crow got rich, and adopted the name of his grandfather Knisely.

PETER PORK

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father and son married two sisters, and Mr. Dumond was both brother-i-law and son-in-law to Mr. Dukes, and Mr. Dukes was both father-in-law and brother-in-law to Mr. Dumond.

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HARD HICKORY

Was a large, noble looking man, and nearly half white, about six feet high, had little chin wiskers, was very straight and muscular, spoke English well, and was highly respected.  He had a large nose, and was about fifty years old when they left.

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GOOD HUNTER

Was of medium height, had a melancholy look, most always drooped his head, walking or sitting, but had a sharp eye, and was considered smart.  He was a full blood Seneca, a little gray, about fifty years old, and took the place of Seneca John after he was killed.

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SENECA JOHN

Was a splendid looking Indian, strictly honest, as many of the Senecas were, was very straight, square-shouldered, and had a frank, open, noble look.  He carried a silver ring in his nose, and one in each ear.  He wore a fur hat and broadcloth coat, cut Indian fashion, with a belt, and a silver band three inches wide on each upper arm.  He was a stylish man, and of commanding bearing.  He lived near Green Springs when he was executed, then about thirty-eight years old.

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SENECA STEEL

Was a small Indian, very active, but there was nothing otherwise uncommon about him.  Seneca John, Comstock and Coonstick were his brothers.

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     Mr. Montgomery preached Spicer's funeral sermon.  George Herrin, a half Mohawk, was interpreter, and gave the sermon in the Indian, sentence by sentence.  (Slow preaching.)
     One of Spicer's boys, Small Cloud, was a fine looking fellow, a half blood.  He married Crow's daughter by his first wife.  Little Town Spicer had three or four wives.  Both these Spicer boys went west with the Senecas.
     Whenever an Indian was buried they built a pen of poles about three feet high around the grave, and laid poles over the top.  Before they left they carried these pens away and threw the poles over the bank.
     Crow was a great deer hunter, and shot many a fine buck after night.

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He would then carry a pole seven feet long, pointed at the end, with a fork at the upper end.  A piece of bark, about fifteen inches wide and two feet long, was fastened to the fork so as to make the bottom level and the other end sticking up along the pole, like a letter L.  A candle was put into the bottom part, and Crow holding this over his head, was in the shade, but could see objects far off.  The deer would look at the light, and not notice Crow in the dark.  As soon as Crow saw a deer he would stick the ole in the soft ground, and make sure of his game.  This was called "fire hunting," and Crow would always travel along the edge of the river, where the deer would come down to drink and find "salt licks."
     The Indians made their wax candles by using cotton rags for wicks and puring the melted wax into dry stocks of the wild parsnip, which they used as candle-moulds.  They had another light for house use, made of strips of fat pork, which were dried in the chimneys, fastened to a stick  so that they hung straight down.  When dry and hard, these were stuck into a hole bored into a chip, for a candle stick, and then lit, making as good a light as a candle.  The name for a candle was "gigh-di-tagua."
     There was a great deal of sickness amongst the Senecas in 1822, and many died.  They believed themselves bewitched, and holding a council on  the subject, condemned four poor old squaws to be tomahawked for witchcraft.  Next day, these squaws went to Lower Sandusky and bought whisky.  When they came back they got drunk, and when in that condition they said they were ready, and told the executioner to "cut away."  One Indian killed them all.  His name was Jim Sky.
     Says Mr. Harris: -
     A few days after the execution some of the Indians brought the tomahawk to my grandfather's shop, to have it put into better shape.  It was a "pipe tomahawk."  Soon after a young Indian came in and saw the tomahawk laying on the bench, when he broke out in a horrible oath, and told me to lay it anyway, for that had killed his mamma.  He then cried aloud a long time.  His name was Good Spring.
     Seneca Joseph had an old squaw living with him who was suspected of being a witch.  She was  very sick, and Mrs. Stanley used to go over to see her often.  One day, when she came there the old squaw was dead, and all drawn up crooked; so they made a crooked grave to lit her.  They laid bark on the bottom, wrapped her in a blanket, put her in and covered her with bark, and then filled up the grave with dirt.
     One of the Shippey girls came to our house one day on horseback; having heard some wolves howl, she was afraid to go home alone, and some of our folks had to go with her.  She afterwards married John Rickets, and Mr. Rezin Rickets, in Hopewell township, is a son of William Rickets, brother to John.

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     The wolves used to make a fearful howling noise, which they sometimes kept up all night.  No one can now imagine what terrible feelings the howling of the wolves would create, on a dark, wintry night, when we were in bed; the wolves howling on the one side, and the Indians keeping up their everlasting tum, tum, tum, on the other, dancing all night.

MOUND BUILDERS.

     There were several mounds on the Culver  place, and we often plowed up bones and ancient crockery.  In 1850 we opened one of these mounds, and found a very large skeleton, with a well shaped skull, and a stone pitcher near the head.  The Pitcher seemed to have been made of sand and clay.  Small vessels of the same material, filled with claim-shells, were placed inside of the elbows.  Some of these pitchers would hold half a gallon.  We gave them to Gen. Brish.  These things were as wonderful to the Indians as to us.

HORSE-RACE

     Some time after Doctor Dresbach came to Tiffin, he and Mr. Josiah Hedges and their riders came to the Spicer place to have a horse-race.  They had a straight track made through Spicer's corn fields.  Dresbach had a small gray mare.  Hedges' horse was a bay belonging to a friend of his by the name of Connell.  McNeal's clerk rode the Dresbach mare, and Albert Hedges rode the Connell mare.  Hedges' bay won.
     The same day the Connell horse ran against some body's elese horse, on the same track.  At the outcome the bay stopped short and threw Albert Hedges clear over the fence, and he had his ankle dislocated.  They came down here to have the race, because they could find no other place so free from stumps.  The track was straight from the bank of the river to the hill where Mr. Tomb's house now stands.  This was the first horse-race in Seneca county.