Ironton Register, Thursday, January 7, 1858
Col. John Johnston, who for sixty-five years, [born ca 1775] and has been a prominent citizen of Western Ohio – for many years the Government Indian Agent at Piqua – communicates an interesting article to the Pioneer Association, Cincinnati, which is published in the Gazette, and from which we make liberal extracts.
Col. Johnston is now about 83 years old. His father, Stephen Johnston, and his (Stephen’s) brothers, John and Francis, emigrated from the North of Ireland to what is now Perry County, Pennsylvania, at the close of the American Revolution. His father’s ancestors were Scotch Presbyterians; his mother’s French Huguenots.
Two sons of Col. Johnston were officers in the U. S. Army and perished in the War with Mexico.
The early years of Col. Johnston were spent in Carlisle, Pa., in a store. This was the rendezvous of the troops bound for the West. Harmar, and St. Clair, had been defeated by the Indians, and another Army was being recruited for the gallant Wayne.
Companies were leaving the barracks at Carlisle for the frontiers as soon, as _______ for service. – And the glowing accounts of that almost boundless region inspired young Johnston with a desire to visit it. An opportunity soon occurred, and he accompanied Samuel Creigh, who went with a stock of goods, to sell to the army, going to Pittsburgh on foot, with loaded wagons. But let the Colonel tell his own story:
THE JOURNEY WEST
I was then in my seventeenth year, [ca 1792] and the journey, performed in the depth of winter, fifteen miles a day, for loaded wagons, was considered a good day’s work. The average for the whole trip, per day, would fall short of that, such was the wretched condition of the roads at that time.
There was not, at that period, a single mile of the turnpike in the State of Pennsylvania. The mountain region was so thinly populated that the local labor was entirely inadequate to keep the roads in any kind of repair. The settlers west of the mountains transported their supplies of salt, iron, and other necessities, on pack horses. I have seen ___ty horses thus loaded, in one party at a time, passing over those rugged steeps.
GENERAL CASS
It may not be out of place, in a narrative of this kind, to state that Hon. Lewis Cass, now Secretary of State of the United States, first crossed the mountains on foot, at a somewhat later period than myself. The year I have forgotten. Although very young at the time, he carried in his knapsack all that he possessed. We were among the early adventurers to the Northwest; long and intimately associated together in the management of Indian affairs. While Governor of Michigan, he superintended the department in which I was the senior agent. More fortunate than myself, he attained to high honors and great wealth, whilst the ________ of life finds me in possession of a bare competence.
PITTSBURGH
We finally reached Pittsburgh, then a small unimportant place, without, I think, a single brick building. The town consisted of a string of log houses along the bank of the Monongahela River. There were still some of the remains of the ancient French Fort, Duquesne, at the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers.
The magazine which was bomb-proof was still perfect. – – Fort Fayette, erected under the authority of the United States, and for protection only against the Indians, and for the safe keeping of the public property, stood on the east bank of the Allegheny, about half a mile above the forks of the Rivers. It was a stockade of the usual kind, with blockhouses at the angles. There was no settlement of the whites west of the Allegheny River. The Indian war was raging, and men were often waylaid and murdered by the savages, and their mutilated bodies were brought to the town for interment.
DESERTER SHOT
While the army remained here, previous to its going into quarters at Legionville, about twenty miles below, on the right bank of Ohio, several desertions took place. – – It became necessary to make an example, by [having a] public execution.
A sergeant Trotter deserted in the night – was pursued and taken next morning – brought into camp – a drumhead court-martial called; he was tried, sentenced, taken out, and shot before two o’clock in full view of the whole army.
The unfortunate man was not more than twenty-five years old, tall, well-proportioned, and a fine-looking soldier. Such examples, although terrific in their character became necessary to preserve the army from dissolution. Three others were shot for a similar crime, after the army reached “Hobson’s Choice,” at Cincinnati; subsequently, two other soldiers were ordered for execution but were pardoned at the instance of the lady of General Wilkinson, the deserters having wives.
BATTLES AND INCIDENTS
The army remained at Legionville from the spring of 1793, until September of the same year, at which period it reached “Hobson’s Choice.” Late in October, General Wayne, with the army, reached Greenville, and went into winter quarters; in the same month, Lieutenant Lowry and Ensign Boyd, with a command of nearly 100 men, were attacked and defeated near Fort St. Clair. Both those gallant young officers, with many of their men, perished in the conflict.
On the 30th of June, 1794, Major McMahon, with his command, had a hard fought battle with the Indians under the walls of Fort Recovery, the ground of St. Clair’s dis______. The savages were ______, with a _____ our part of Major McMahon, Captain _____horn, and Lieutenant C_____g killed, and _________ officers and soldiers wounded. I happened to be at Greenville at the time. The _____ of the cannon was distinctly heard – Fort Recovery being only _____ miles distant. _____ force of the enemy being unknown, it was deemed imprudent to _______ a force for the relief of the garrison.
Captain Gibson, who commanded Fort Recovery, defended his _______ with great skill and courage. The enemy were disappointed and ____________, but our _________ was severe.
In the summer of 1794, Col. Elliot, one of the contractors for the army, was killed by the Indians while on his way from the headquarters at Greenville to Fort Washington, and near to where Putman’s tavern afterwards stood, on the Hamilton road.
The soldier who accompanied him escaped by the fleetness of his horse, and made his way to Fort Washington. Capt. Pierce, then in command, sent out a detachment next day, to recover the remains and bring them in for interment; the servant soldier of Elliot accompanied the party to identify the place of the murder.
Arriving at the spot, and in searching among the under-growth bushes for the body, the Indians being still in ambush, shot the unfortunate soldier. His body, with that of his master, which was most barbarously mutilated, was brought in and buried at the old graveyard, at the corner of Fourth and Main streets, Cincinnati.
THE COMMON SOLDIER – REFLECTIONS
The name and history of the soldier is unknown, and so it is always; the common soldier does the hard fighting, and seldom receives any of the glory. Hundreds of their remains lie scattered throughout the Northwest, that have never had a grave to cover them. Many of the remains of those killed under Harmar, near Fort Wayne, were thus exposed and gathered together in my time.to enjoy, was purchased at an immense sacrifice of blood and treasure.
How grateful should be our feelings and our attachment, like hooks of steel, to Washington and the Federal Government, who sustained and sent forth armies after so many defeats, until the enemy was conquered and brought to submit to our terms, by the treaty of Greenville of 1795!
TRIBUTE TO KENTUCKY
Nor is our debt of gratitude less due to our neighbor – chivalrous Kentucky – who, after conquering and expelling from her own soil, without aid or assistance from the Federal Government, the hordes of savages, North and South, came voluntarily to our assistance, and never ceased coming at our call, until we rested in peace and security.
The soil of Ohio has been drenched with some of the best blood of Kentucky. The Indian wars, as well as the second war for Independence of 1812 testify.
“How heroes when _____, Who, _____Toiled for their ____, and for their safety bled.”
KENTUCKY VOLUNTEERS
In the summer of 1794, I witnessed the arrival of the Kentucky volunteers at Cincinnati, under the command of Gen. Scott, said to be 1,200 strong, on their way to headquarters at Greenville, to co-operate with Gen. Wayne, in the campaign against the Indians.
They made a martial appearance. Their dress was a hunting shirt and leggings, with equipment – rifle, tomahawk, knife, pouch, and powder horn.
It was understood, there was not a drafted man in the whole command; all were volunteers. In those times, the men of Kentucky thirsted for an opportunity of being revenged on the savages; for it would be difficult to find, in the whole of the State, a family that had not suffered the loss of some of its members by the inroads of the Southern and Northern Indians.
COL. DANIEL BOONE
I spent the winter of 1795 at Bourbon Court House, Kentucky. I there made the acquaintance of the celebrated Daniel Boone, who was brought to the place by a Mr. Owings, as well as I can recollect, for the purpose of tracing up some landlines and titles.
I slept four or five nights in the same room with Boone. He was a modest, retiring person, of few words; scarcely speaking unless spoken to; of medium size. His age at that time might have been fifty years; although in mid-winter, he was poorly attired; his garments all, or nearly all, linen. In the earlier period of his life, he was a prisoner among my Shawanoese Indians, and as such, often trod the ground of Upper Piqua, for many years my home, and the seat of my agency for Indian affairs in the Northwest.
A few years ago, I happened to be at Harrodsburg Springs, Kentucky. While there, I received an invitation from the Governor to attend at Frankfort, to act as one of the pall-bearers at the re-interment of the remains of Boone and his wife, who had been recently removed from the State of Missouri, by a committee sent from Kentucky for that purpose.
The bodies had remained in the soil of Missouri for near thirty years, and it was after much hesitancy on the part of the person on whose plantation they were deposited, that he consented to their removal; all the small bones of both had mouldered into dust. They were enclosed in separate boxes, and at Frankfort transferred to two plain handsome coffins, and thus committed to their last resting place, in the public cemetery at Frankfort, which occupies a high and beautiful knoll, overlooking the Kentucky River.
It was accorded to me to carry Boone’s coffin from the hearse to the grave; it indicated no weight beyond that of the boards of which it was made. The Military, Free Masons, and Odd Fellows were out in their appropriate uniform, and in large numbers.
The whole attendance was estimated at twenty-five thousand. Hon. John J. Crittenden was the orator, and the Methodist Bishop Soule, the chaplain, on the occasion. Boone was always poor, and it is believed did not own an acre of ground at the time of his death. It was contemplated that the Legislature of Kentucky would cause an appropriate monument to be placed over the remains of those distinguished and adventurous Pioneers. I have not learned whether that pledge has been redeemed. (It has not. – Ed. Reg)
INDIANS ‘NATURALIZE’ OTHERS
The practice of adopting children and grown persons captured in war, is universal in all the Indian nations, and after the ceremony of adoption is ended, the stranger is received and in all respects treated as one of their own blood. In 1818, at the treaty of St. Mary’s, being the senior agent in service, I was charged with the management, care, and supply of ten thousand Indians.
A murder was committed by a young Potawatmie on the person of another young man of the same tribe, who happened to be the only son of an aged widow and her only support. The murderer made no attempt to escape, was taken and made to sit down at the feet of the corpse, the widow in her mourning sitting at the head. The Chiefs assembled to deliberate the case.
The conclusion was, the murderer must eat a piece of the dead man’s liver, and then be adopted and given to the widow in place of her son, all of which was complied with. I furnished on the part of the Government, as a finale to the whole matter, a number of goods to clothing the parties. I never heard that any grudge or bad rumor grew out of the case.
The woman took the young man to her home and appeared content and satisfied. The practice of adopting from one tribe or nation to another, persons taken in war, was universal and from time immemorial. Thus one of the principal Chiefs of the Wyandotts was a native Cherokee, taken in war, and was always known by name as the “Cherokee Boy.”
THE INDIAN RACE
The Indians who inhabited the soil of Ohio in my time were the Wyandotts, on Sandusky river and its tributaries; the Ottawas, about Maumee Bay, and up the River about Defiance, and along Blanchard’s Fork; the Shawnese, at Wapaghkonetta, Hog Creek, and at Lewis Town, at the source of the Miami of Ohio.
The Senecas resided at Seneca Town, near Lower Sandusky; a small band of the Delawares resided about seven miles south of Upper Sandusky, under the Chief Captain Pipe; the whole numbering about three thousand souls; and agreeable to our usual estimate of the Indian population, producing five to six hundred fighting men. They have all left for the far West, it has fallen to my lot to negotiate a treaty of cession and emigration with the last of the natives, the Wyandottes, in 1812.
Now the Indians do not own a foot of land on the soil of Ohio, nor is one of their race to be found residing within its limits. Sixty-five years ago, when I first came to Northwest Territory, they were the sole occupants of the country. A few more years, and there will not be one of them left to tell that they ever existed!
LITTLE TURTLE
[Of all the Indians of his Agency, Col. Johnston says that “Weshequonaghqua,” or Little Turtle, of the Miami’s, “was by far the most eloquent, and the ablest Indian diplomatist and statesman.” At the Treaty of Greenville, in 1795, which gave peace ____ the West, “he contended manfully for the _____ and interests of his people.” Col. Johnston continues:]
I was often the guest of Little Turtle, at his home on Eel River, a branch of the Wabash, about twenty miles from Ft. Wayne. He lived in good style for an Indian – had two wives, one an old woman, the choice of his youth, the other a young girl of eighteen years. Both appeared to live in great peace and harmony.
The Turtle received a pension from the English Government of one hundred guineas a year, and this was continued to him long after the United States assumed the jurisdiction. High living destroyed the health of the Chief, who died at Fort Wayne, not quite sixty years old, with a confirmed case of gout. He was buried, by order of the commanding officer, with military honors.
After the Turtle’s death, the Miami’s possessed no one of equal abilities to occupy his place. The tribe degenerated into dissipation and lost its rank and influence in the confederacy of the Northwest tribes. The rapid increase of our population compelled them to abandon their favorite home on the Wabash, and seek a new country southwest of Missouri.
From the accounts I have of their intemperate habits and bad management, they will, doubtless, soon become extinct. And this fate, I fear, awaits most of the tribes who emigrated from Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan.
A TRIP UP THE OHIO RIVER
I left Fort Washington in the fall of 1794 and ascended Ohio by water to Wheeling in a small pirogue purchased by a party of nine, who clubbed for the cost and the common stock of provisions for the trip. We organized for defense against the Indians, who often waylaid the River, attacking and capturing boats. We chose John Ward, afterward as the Clerk of the Courts at Steubenville, Ohio, for our Captain.
The River was low, and the passage tedious. One man of the party was always detailed on shore to guard against surprise from the Indians, and this duty was performed alternately by all of the party, the Captain excepted. We never made any fire at night, cooked our supper in the afternoon, then pushed our craft on until night set in.
We then sought some quiet nook when we landed, and lay down to sleep, one of the party keeping awake, and acting as sentinel. We often lodged on islands, and sometimes on the north and at other times on the southern shore.
Thus we baffled the savages if any were in pursuit. We reached Wheeling in safety, after a passage of more than twenty days. A larger party, who started with us, and from which we purposely separated, lost two men killed and a woman wounded by the Indians. In passing up, we saw several remains of boats that had been captured and destroyed by the Indians, the unfortunate occupants being either killed or taken into captivity by the savages.
My relative, Charles Johnston, of Botetourt, Virginia, was thus taken in 1792, in Ohio, his boat being decoyed ashore by a base white man, under the pretense of being a prisoner escaped from the Indians. Mr. May, the principal owner of the boat and cargo, was shot through the head, dead while holding up an emblem of surrender. Johnston, after being taken to the Wyandott villages on Sandusky River, was ransomed by a humane trader named Francis Duchaquet.
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