THE Senecas
were, at one time in their history, a very powerful race,
and about the time of the revolutionary war the most
savage and cruel of any of these forest monsters.
About the time they took possession of their reservation in
Seneca county, there was scarcely anything left of them, and
those that did settle here were a mixed rabble of several
tribes, half-breeds and captives.
For more than a century this tribe had been in contact
with the white race, in peace and in war; and instead of
deriving the benefit which naturally ought to have followed,
from this intimacy, they deteriorated to more abject
barbarism still, and dwindled down to a handful of dirty,
stupid, superstitious, worthless rabble. Had not this
county once been their home, and been named after them,
nobody would care to read or learn anything about them.
As it is, the reader would scarce be satisfied, in perusing
a history of this county, without having an opportunity to
learn all there was of them, and what they were like when
they roamed over the ground that contains so many happy
homes as now enjoyed by the people here. All these
sprung up by magic, as it were, since the last satanic yell
of these hell-hounds of the woods died on the desert air.
The manner in which the British government carried on
both her wars with the United States, by making these red
fiends their allies, and supplying them with everything
needful to perpetrate their cruelties upon the white people
along the frontier, put that government in a worse light
still, looked at from every stand-point that tie may
justify. For a high-toned, christian people, claiming
the mastery of the seas, and upon whose territory the sun
never ceases to shine, not only justifying midnight
butcheries of her superior enemy by savage warfare, but
helping it along and approving these atrocities, calls aloud
for universal condemnation.Page 122 -
The relation of
Great Britain with the western savages, and the power this
red ally exercised on the western frontier, is clearly
shown in a letter that Dr. Franklin furnished the
American Remembrancer, an authority which nobody will
dispute.
The British government had sent its agents to all the
Indian tribes to enlist the savages against the colonists.
The America sent Benjamin Franklin to Paris to
secure, if possible, the aid of France in favor of his
countrymen. Dr. Franklin wrote an article for
the American Remembrancer, which, in that day,
exerted a very powerful influence in both Europe and
America. It purported to be a letter from a British
officer to the Governor of Canada, accompanying a present of
eight packages of scalps of the colonists, which he had
received from the chief of the Senecas. As a very
important part of the history of the times, the letter
should be recorded. It was as follows:
"MAY IT PLEASE YOUR EXCELLENCY:
"At the request of James Hoyt, eight packages of
scalps, cured, dried, hooped and painted with all the
triumphal marks, of which the following is the invoice and
explanation:
"No. 1 - Containing forty-three scalps of Congress
soldiers, killed in different skirmishes. These are
stretched on black hoops, four inches in diameter. The
inside of the skin is painted red, with a small black spot,
to denote their being killed with bullets: the hoops painted
red; the skin painted brown and marked with a hoe; a black
circle all round, to denote their being surprised in the
night; and a black hatchet in the middle, signifying their
being killed with that weapon.
"No. 2 - Containing the scalps of ninety-eight farmers,
killed in their houses; hoops red, figure of a hoe, to mark
their profession; great white circle and sun, to show they
were surprised in day time; and little red foot, to show
they stood upon their defense, and died fighting for their
lives and families.
"No. 3 - Containing ninety-seven, of farmers; hoops
green, to show that they were killed in the fields; a large,
white circle, with a little round mark on it, for a sun, to
show it was in the day time; a black bullet mark on some, a
hatchet mark on others.
"No. 4 - Containing one hundred and two, farmers;
mixture of several of the marks above; only eighteen marked
with a little yellow flame, to denote their being of
prisoners burnt alive, after being scalped; their nails
pulled out by the roots, and other torments; one of these
latter being supposed to be an American clergyman, his hand
being fixed to the hook of his scalp. Most of the
farmers appear, by the hair, to have been young or
middle-aged men, there being but sixty-seven very gray heads
among them all, which makes the service more essential.
"No. 5 - Containing eighty-eight scalps of women; hair
long, braided in the Indian fashion, to show they were
mothers; hoops, blue; skin, yellow ground, with little red
tad-poles, to represent, byway of triumph, the tears
Page 123 -
of grief occasional to their relatives; a black scalping
knife or hatchet at the bottom, to mark their being killed
by those instruments. Seventeen others, being very
gray; black hoops; plain brown color; no marks but the short
club or cassetete, to show they were knocked down
dead, or had their brains beaten out.
"No. 6 - Containing one hundred and ninety-three boys'
scalps, of various aging small green hoops, with ground on
the skin, with red tears in the middle, and black marks,
knife, hatchet or club, as their death happened.
"No. 7 - Containing two hundred and eleven girls' scalps big
and little; small yellow hoops; white ground tears, hatchet
and scalping knife.
"No. 8 - This package is a mixture of all the varieties
above mentioned, to the number of one hundred and
twenty-two, with a box of birch bark, containing twenty-nine
little infants' scalps, of various sizes; small white hoops,
white ground, to show that they were nipped out of their
mothers' wombs.
"With these packs, the chiefs send to our Excellency
the following speech, delivered by Conicogatchie, in
council, interpreted by the elder Moore, the trader,
and taken down by me in writing:
"Father - We wish you to send many scalps, that
you may see we are not idle friends. We wish you to
send these scalps
to the Great King, that he may
regard them, and be refreshed; and that he may see our
faithfulness in destroying his enemies, and he convinced
that his presents have not een made to an ungrateful
people." etc. - Abb. Hist. of Ohio, p. 189.
Is the reader at
a loss to determine which is the most lovely of the two -
the American savage or the British savage - the giver or the
receiver of these scalps?
Mrs. Sally
Ingham, in her contribution, says:
My father was the
Rev. James Montgomery who was appointed the first
agent of the Seneca Indians. He took charge of his
office in November, 1819, when we moved into the old
blockhouse at Fort Seneca. I was then a little girl
eight years old. Louis Tuquania was then the
head chief of the tribe.
Tall Chief was a tall, noble looking specimen of an
Indian, sober and honorable. Seneca John, Steel,
Coonstick and Comstock were nephews of Tall
Chief. Comstock died very suddenly
when Coonstick was out west for some time, and when
he returned an investigation was instituted to ascertain the
manner of his death. John, his brother, was
found guilty of the murder by having procured the services
of a medicine woman who administered poison to Comstock,
Coonstick, Shane and Steel were his
executioners. I think the particulars given by Gen.
Brish are, perhaps, the most correct version of the
whole affair.
We lived in the old blockhouse seven years. The
pickets were yet there when we came. Some of them had
been broken down.
The Senecas were an exceedingly superstitious people,
and notwithstanding all the influences brought to bear upon
them to love and embrace the christian religion, they were
very stubborn, and seemed to prefer their untutored notions
about the Deity to the beauties of divine revelation.
Page 124 -
MORETO COME
Page 125 -
Page 126 -
Page 127 -
Page 128 -
was nicely braided. Very proud of his education and
French training, he often put on great airs, and said, "This
is the way the French officers do." His overbearing
disposition often got him into trouble with other Indians,
all of whom he regarded as vastly his inferiors, and very
frequently father was called upon to settle his troubles for
him.
A man by the name of Keeler lived near the river
bank. He had a family of six children; he came from
the state of New York, and bought forty acres of land.
The family suffered greatly with sickness. I don't
remember what became of them.
Alexander McNutt and his brother, Daniel
McNutt, were also here in 1819. Daniel had
a family, and Alexander married a sister of Isaac
I. Dumond. My father solemnized their marriage.
William Montgomery started a
store in 1833, in a log cabin, in the village that is now
called Fort Seneca.
Eliphalet Rogers bought a farm near Wolf creek.
He married Hannah Jackson, who had lived at Mr.
Bowe's a long time. Rogers was an honest,
home-spun sort of a man. His farm became afterwards
known as the Snook farm.
Old Mr. Sherwood was a captain of a militia
company, and very proud of his station. He was a great
talker, and somewhat boastful. He did not live to be
very old.
Mr. William Harris, the gunsmith, was a man
about five feet ten inches high, stout and well built.
He was poor, but a man of considerable refinement, and
strictly honest. He drank some, but not to excess.
He came here with his family after the Barneys, but
before the Dumonds, and was amongst the first that
settled near the fort.
The Pikes and the Chaneys lived on the
Spicer place when we came to the fort.
There were three of these Tuguanias. One was the
head chief, another was the Joseph, and the third was
the Armstrong Tugnania, the son of the one eyed
medicine woman.
__________
MRS. SALLY INGHAM
The subject of
this sketch was born in Champaign county, Ohio, on the 4th
day of February, 1811. She is the fifth child of the
Rev. James Montgomery, and was but eight years old
when the family moved into the blockhouse at Fort Seneca.
She grew up from childhood into a blooming maiden, on the
banks of the old Sandusky, among a few white settlers on one
side, and the Senecas on the other side, of the river.
In these wild and rural scenes of her childhood, she
lived under the droppings of the sanctuary, blessed with the
love of christian parents, and a cheerful disposition, that
lets the owner look upon the sunny side
Page 129 -
of life - a blessing that never forsook her in all her
life-long pathway.
For want of other schools she received her primary
education in the household, and afterwards took lessons in
English grammar from Judge Hulbert. She
also attended a grammar school taught by Edson B. Goit,
Esq., in Lower Sandusky, Ohio. With this training
she was enabled to teach school herself, and kept her first
school near John Crum's, on the state road, three
miles north of Tiffin; and after the death of her father,
she taught two years lower.
When she was about getting ready to attend the grammar
school at Fremont, she went to McNeil's store at Fort
Ball, to buy a pair of shoes. Mr. Sardis Birchard
sold them to her. He was then clerk in the store, and
afterwards became familiarly known in Lower Sandusky by the
name of Judge Birchard, the uncle of President
Hayes.
On the 25th day of March, 1832, Mrs. Ingham was
married to Mr. Milton Frary, a young farmer in
Pleasant township, in this county, who died in 1852.
After living in widowhood seventeen years, she married a
Mr. Alexander Ingham, from Cleveland, Ohio, who also
died in April, 1870.
Mrs. Ingham is still in the enjoyment of good
health, and the same old happy disposition. She has a
remarkable memory of past events. The names of
persons, places and incidents are at the tongue's end, and
her ready delineation is easily discernible by reading her
narrative. She has her father's temperament and
appearance, strongly marked. Her conversation is both
instructive and amusing, couched in splendid English, and
sweetened by her christian training, which unconsciously
crops out on every occasion.
If she ever had an enemy, he must have died long ago.
She is beloved by all who know her, and welcome at every
door.
For more than fifty-two years she has been a faithful
member of the M. E. Church, in good standing; and while she
enjoys her trust and confidence in God, she is not bowed
down by the weight of the cross, but seems rather to bear
her faith and increasing weight of years as an enjoyment.
She has now lived in Seneca county longer than any
other person in it, and is the last and only remaining
member of a once very large family.
Mrs. Ingham had four children: James R. Frary,
who was married to Hattie F., daughter of the Rev.
Andrews. He died in Tiffin, in March, 1862, well
known among the merchants and business men of Tiffin;
Emily, now the wife of Jacob Baker; Sarah, who
was married
Page 130 -
to Ralph Gates, and died in 1877; Justin, who
died in 1863, as a prisoner of war in a rebel hospital in
Danville, Virginia.
The writer, in gratitude for her many narratives of men
and things pertaining to early lifein Seneca county, can
only wish her many more years of life in the enjoyment of
her happy nature, in health, comfort and contentment.
- END OF CHAPTER VII -
|