seventh instead of the fifth of November, and locates it at “Chogage”
River (formerly supposed to be Cuyahoga, but now thought to be Grand
River). Croghan’s account is more detailed, and probably written at the
time; while Rogers’s was written or revised later. “Wajea Sipery” is
probably Ashtabula Creek, which is sufficiently crooked in its course to
make this name appropriate. This is the traditional meeting for the first
time, with Pontiac, the Ottawa chief. Parkman’s well-known account of
the haughty bearing and dignified demands of this great Indian contrast
markedly with Croghan’s simpler and more literal account. In truth, it
may be doubted whether this chief was Pontiac at all, as he here speaks
of himself as an old man. Rogers’s _Journal_ makes no mention of any
chief, and alludes but incidentally to meeting the Ottawa band; but in
his _Concise Account of North America_, published in London (1765), when
the exploits of Pontiac were causing much attention, Rogers represents
himself as having encountered that chief on his way to Detroit, and
that the latter asked him how he dared to enter that country without
his (Pontiac’s) leave. This was probably a flight of the imagination,
consequent upon his representing the Indian chief as the hero of the
tragedy in the verses he was then preparing, known as _Ponteach, or the
Savages of America_ (London, 1766). See Parkman, _Conspiracy of Pontiac_,
i, p. 165, ii, appendix B. The plain, unadorned account of Croghan, and
the begging attitude of the Ottawa chief, are probably more in accordance
with historical verity than Parkman’s and Rogers’s more romantic
accounts.—ED.
[70] The creek which Croghan calls “Onchuago” was Grand River, whose
Indian name was “Chaeaga” (Sheauga), and which is thus designated on
Evans’s map of 1755, and Hutchins’s map of 1778. Whittlesey, _Early
History of Cleveland_ (Cleveland, 1867), thus identifies this stream.
Baldwin, in his “Early Maps of Ohio and the West,” Western Reserve
Historical Society _Tracts_, No. 25, thinks it is the Conneaut Creek;
but that would be too far east to correspond with this description, and
the present Geauga County takes its title from the Indian name of Grand
River.—ED.
[71] Lieutenant Dietrich Brehm (Braam) was a German engineer who came
to America in 1756 with the 32nd regiment (later the 60th or Royal
Americans). Little is known of his military career, save that in the line
of promotion he was captain in 1774, and major in 1783.—ED.
[72] Probably “Gichawaga” was Cuyahoga River, the site of the city of
Cleveland, and a well-known rendezvous of the Ottawa Indians, who had
a village some miles up its banks. Rogers speaks of it as Elk River,
which by some geographers is placed east of Cuyahoga River; but Rogers’s
list of distances, allowing for much tacking, would indicate that the
expedition had by this time certainly come as far beyond Grand River as
Cuyahoga.—ED.
[73] Stony Creek was the present Rocky River, about five miles west of
Cleveland. Near this spot a part of Bradstreet’s fleet was wrecked in
1764. See Western Reserve Historical Society _Tracts_, No. 13.—ED.
[74] Marie François Picoté, Sieur de Bellestre, was born in 1719, and
when about ten years of age emigrated with his father to Detroit.
Entering the army, he held a number of commands—in Acadia (1745-46),
and at the Western posts, especially at St. Josephs, where he had much
influence over the Indians. In the Huron revolt (1748), his bravery was
especially commended. During the French and Indian War he led his Indian
allies on various raids—one to Carolina in 1756, where he received a
slight wound; and again in New York against the German Flats (1757).
Bellestre was present at Niagara about the time it was attacked; but
Pouchot detailed him to retire with the detachments from forts Presqu’
Isle and Machault to Detroit, and he was commanding at this post when
summoned to surrender to Major Rogers. After the capitulation of Detroit,
he returned to Canada, and became a partisan of the British power,
captured St. John, and defended Chambly against the Americans in 1775-76.
He was made a member of the first legislative council of the province.—ED.
[75] The encampment for the night of November 15 seems to have been made
between two small creeks that flow into the lake near together, in Dover
Township, Cuyahoga County.—ED.
[76] Vermillion Creek or River retains its name. The river where the
expedition encamped (“Notowacy Thepy”) was probably that now known as
the Huron River, in Erie County, Ohio. Rogers’s _Journal_ mentions these
rivers without giving names.—ED.
[77] Rogers names the lake here mentioned, as Sandusky. It is difficult
to tell from this description whether or not the flotilla entered the
inner Sandusky Bay. Probably the encampment for the nineteenth was on the
site of the present city of Sandusky, at Mill or Pipe Creek.—ED.
[78] Médard Gamelin was the son of a French surgeon, and nephew of
that Sieur de la Jémerais who accompanied La Vérendrye on his Western
explorations, and died (1735) in the wilderness west of Lake Superior.
Gamelin was born two years before this event. Emigrating to Detroit,
he employed himself in raising and training a militia company composed
of the habitants, which he led to the relief of Niagara (1759). There
he was captured and kept a prisoner until released by the orders of
General Amherst in order to accompany Rogers’s expedition, and pacify the
settlers at Detroit. He took the oath of allegiance and remained in that
city after its capitulation to the British, dying there about 1778.—ED.
[79] The present Cranberry Creek is east of Sandusky. The creek which
Croghan mentions was some small tributary of Portage River (the
Carrying-place), or directly beyond it. Rogers says they went “to the
mouth of a river in breadth 300 feet,” which is evidently Portage
River.—ED.
[80] Rogers’s _Journal_ (p. 191), gives his own speech. He indicates
in his account that the Indians were preparing to resist the English
advance; but Croghan does not mention any such suspicions.
General Jeffrey Amherst was an English soldier of much distinction, who
after serving a campaign in Flanders and Germany, was commissioned by
Pitt to take charge of the military operations in America (1758). His
first success was the capture of Louisburg, followed by the campaign
of 1759, when he reduced Ticonderoga and Crown Point, and moved upon
Montreal, which capitulated the following year. He was immediately made
governor-general of the British in North America, received the thanks
of Parliament, and was presented with the order of the Bath. It was in
obedience to his orders that Rogers undertook this westward expedition.
Amherst’s later career was a succession of honors, emoluments, and high
appointments in the British army. He opposed the cause of the colonies
during the American Revolution. Late in life he was field-marshal of the
British army, dying (1797) at his estate in Kent, as Baron Amherst of
Montreal.—ED.
[81] Cedar Point is at the southeastern entrance of Maumee Bay. Rogers’s
_Journal_ for November 23 says that an Ottawa sachem came into their
camp; possibly this was Pontiac.—ED.
[82] From the distances given in Rogers’s _Journal_ it would appear that
the expedition encamped the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth in the entrance
of Swan Creek, Monroe County, Michigan, a short distance north of Stony
Point.—ED.
[83] Pierre François Rigault, Chevalier de Cavagnal, Marquis de
Vaudreuil, was Canadian born, and entered the military service at an
early age. In 1728 he was in the present Wisconsin on an expedition
against the Fox Indians; some years later, he was governor at Trois
Rivières, and in 1743 was sent to command in Louisiana, where he remained
nine years, until appointed governor of New France, just before the
outbreak of the French and Indian War. As the last French governor
of Canada, his term of service was embittered by quarrels with the
French generals, and disasters to French arms. After his capitulation
at Montreal, he went to France, only to be arrested, thrown into the
Bastile, and tried for malfeasance in office. He succeeded in securing an
acquittal (1763); but, broken by disappointments and enmities, died the
following year.—ED.
[84] The Potawotami Indians are an Algonquian tribe, being first
encountered by French explorers on the borders of Green Bay; but later,
they had villages at Detroit, St. Josephs River (southeast Michigan),
and Milwaukee. They were devoted to the French interests, and easily
attracted to the vicinity of the French posts. For the Wyandots (Hurons)
and Ottawas, see _ante_.—ED.
[85] The French fort of St. Josephs was established early in the
eighteenth century, on the right bank of the river of that name, about
a mile from the present city of Niles, Michigan. Its commandant was the
“farmer” of the post—that is, he was entitled to what profits he could
win from the Indian trade, and paid his own expenses. After the British
took possession of this fort, it was garrisoned by a small detachment
of the Royal Americans. When Pontiac’s War broke out, but fourteen
soldiers were at the place, with Ensign Schlosser in command. The fort
was captured and eleven of the garrison killed, the rest being carried
prisoners to Detroit. During the Revolution, Fort St. Josephs was three
times taken from the British—twice by parties from the Illinois led by
French traders (in 1777, and again in 1778); and in 1781, a Spanish
expedition set out from St. Louis to capture the stronghold, and take
possession of this region for Spain. See Mason, _Chapters from Illinois
History_ (Chicago, 1901). The United States failed to garrison St.
Josephs when the British forts were surrendered in 1796, and built
instead (1804) Fort Dearborn at Chicago.
Ouiatonon (Waweoughtannes) was situated at the head of navigation on
the Wabash River, not far from the present city of Lafayette, Indiana.
The French founded this post about 1719, among a tribe of the same
name (called Weas by the English); and kept an officer stationed there
until its surrender to the English party sent out by Rogers (1761). The
small garrison under command of Lieutenant Jenkins was captured at the
outbreak of Pontiac’s conspiracy; but through the intervention of French
traders their lives were spared, while the fort was destroyed by burning,
and never rebuilt. See Craig, “Ouiatonon,” Indiana Historical Society
_Collections_ (Indianapolis, 1886), v, ii. See also Croghan’s description
when he passed here five years later, _post_.—ED.
[86] The speculation and corruption of the French officers at the Western
posts, was notorious. Bellestre was not free from suspicions of taking
advantage of his official position to exploit the Indian trade. See
Farmer, _History of Detroit and Michigan_ (Detroit, 1884), p. 766.—ED.
[87] The French fort among the Miamis (English, Twigtwees) was situated
on the Maumee River, near the present site of Fort Wayne. The date of its
founding is in doubt; but the elder Vincennes was there in 1704, and soon
after this frequent mention is made of its commandants. During the revolt
of the French Indians (1748), the fort was partially burned. When Céloron
passed, the succeeding year, he described it as in a bad condition, and
located on an unhealthful site. About this time, the Miamis removed to
the Great Miami River, and permitted the English to build a fortified
trading house at Pickawillany. But an expedition sent out from Detroit
chastised these recalcitrants, and brought them back to their former
abode, about Fort Miami—which latter is described (1757) as protected
with palisades, on the right bank of the river. The garrison of the
Rangers sent out by Rogers from Detroit to secure this post, was later
replaced by a small detachment of the Royal Americans, under command of
Lieutenant Robert Holmes, who notified Gladwin of Pontiac’s conspiracy,
but nevertheless himself fell a victim thereto. See Morris’s _Journal_,
_post_. The fort destroyed at this time was not rebuilt. Croghan (1765)
speaks of it as ruinous. In the Indian wars of the Northwest, Wayne,
perceiving its strategic importance, built at this site the fort named in
his honor (1794), whence arose the present city.—ED.
[88] The expedition of Major Rogers to relieve the French at Mackinac,
failed because of the lateness of the season, and the consequent ice in
Lake Huron. Rogers returned to Detroit December 21, and two days later
left for Pittsburg, where he arrived January 23, 1761, after a land march
of just one month. The fort at Mackinac was delivered over to an English
detachment under command of Captain Balfour of the Royal Americans,
September 28, 1761.—ED.
[89] The place here mentioned was a Wyandot town shown on Hutchins’s map
(1778). Probably this was the village of the chief Nicholas, founded
in 1747 during his revolt from the French. See Weiser’s _Journal_,
_ante_.—ED.
[90] Croghan returned to Pittsburg by the “great trail,” a famous
Indian thoroughfare leading from the Forks of the Ohio to Detroit.
For a description of this route, see Hulbert, _Indian Thoroughfares_
(Cleveland, 1902), p. 107; and in more detail his article in Ohio
Archæological and Historical Society _Publications_ (Columbus, 1899),
viii, p. 276.
Mohican John’s village was on White Woman’s Creek, near the site of
Reedsburg, Ohio. Beaver’s Town was at the junction of the Tuscarawas and
the Big Sandy, the antecedent of the present Bolivar; for the town at the
mouth of Big Beaver Creek, see Weiser’s _Journal_, _ante_.—ED.
[91] The manuscript of the journal that we here reprint came into the
possession of George William Featherstonhaugh, a noted English geologist
who came to the United States in the early nineteenth century and edited
a geological magazine in Philadelphia. He first published the document
therein (_The Monthly Journal of American Geology_), in the number for
December, 1831. It appeared again in a pamphlet, published at Burlington,
N. J. (no date); and Mann Butler thought it of sufficient consequence to
be introduced into the appendix to his _History of Kentucky_ (Cincinnati
and Louisville, 2nd ed., 1836). Another version of this journey (which
we may call the official version), also written by Croghan, was sent
by Sir William Johnson to the lords of trade, and is published in
_New York Colonial Documents_, vii, pp. 779-788. Hildreth published a
variant of the second (official) version “from an original MS. among
Colonel Morgan’s papers,” in his _Pioneer History of the Ohio Valley_
(Cincinnati, 1848). The two versions supplement each other. The first was
evidently written for some persons interested in lands in the Western
country—their fertility, products, and general aspects; therefore Croghan
herein confines himself to general topographical description, and omits
his journey towards the Illinois, his meeting with Pontiac, and all
Indian negotiations. The official report, on the other hand, abbreviates
greatly the account of the journey and the appearance of the country, and
concerns itself with Indian affairs and historical events. We have in the
present publication combined the two journals, indicating in footnotes
the important variations; but the bulk of the narrative is a reprint of
the Featherstonhaugh-Butler version.
With regard to the circumstances under which the official journal was
transcribed, Johnson makes the following explanation in his letter to
the board of trade (_New York Colonial Documents_, vii, p. 775): “I have
selected the principal parts [of this journal] which I now inclose to
your Lordships, the whole of his Journal is long and not yet collected
because after he was made Prisoner, & lost his Baggage &ca. he was
necessitated to write it on Scraps of Paper procured with difficulty at
_Post Vincent_, and that in a disguised Character to prevent its being
understood by the French in case through any disaster he might be again
plundered.”
The importance of this journal for the study of Western history has
frequently been noted. Parkman used it extensively in his _Conspiracy
of Pontiac_. Winsor in his _Critical and Narrative History of America_,
v, p. 704, _note_, first pointed out in some detail the differences
between the two versions. He errs, however, in confusing the letters
Croghan wrote from Vincennes and Ouiatonon. Many secondary authorities
also wrongly aver that Croghan on this journey went as far as Fort
Chartres.—ED.
[92] Croghan arrived at Fort Pitt, February 28, 1765, and from then
until his departure was constantly occupied with Indian transactions in
preparation for his journey. See _Pennsylvania Colonial Records_, ix, pp.
250-264; also Withers’s _Early History of Western Pennsylvania_, app.,
pp. 166-179.—ED.
[93] Little Beaver Creek (near the western border of Pennsylvania) and
Yellow Creek (in Ohio) were much frequented by Indians. On the former,
Half King had a hunting cabin. Logan, the noted Mingo chief, lived at
the mouth of the latter. Opposite, upon the Virginia shore, occurred
the massacre of Logan’s family (April 30, 1774), which was one of the
opening events of Lord Dunmore’s War. See _Withers’s Chronicles of Border
Warfare_ (Thwaites’s ed., Cincinnati, 1895), p. 150, _notes_.—ED.
[94] The village here described was Mingo Town on Mingo bottom, situated
at the present Mingo Junction, Ohio. It is not to be confused with the
Mingo bottom opposite the mouth of Yellow Creek. The former town was
prominent as a rendezvous for border war-parties in the Revolutionary
period. From this point, started the rabble that massacred the Moravian
Indians in 1782. Colonel Crawford set out from here, in May of the same
year, on his ill-fated expedition against the Sandusky Indians. See
Withers’s _Chronicles_, chap. 13.
Possibly the chief who joined Croghan at this point was Logan, since
the former had known him in his earlier home on the Susquehanna, near
Sunbury.—ED.
[95] Buffalo Creek is in Brooke County, West Virginia, with the town of
Wellsburg located at its mouth. The first settlers arrived about 1769.
Fat Meat Creek is not identified; from the distances given, it might be
Big Grave Creek, in Marshall County, West Virginia, or Pipe Creek, nearly
opposite, in Belmont County, Ohio.—ED.
[96] The “Long Reach” lies between Fishing Creek and the Muskingum,
sixteen and a half miles in a nearly straight line to the southwest.—ED.
[97] The French called the Muskingum Yanangué-kouan—the river of the
Tobacco (Petun-Huron) Indians. Céloron (1749) left at the mouth of
this river, one of his plates, which was found in 1798, and is now
in possession of the American Antiquarian Society, at Worcester,
Massachusetts. Croghan had frequently been on the Muskingum, where as
early as 1750, he had a trading house. The inhabitants at that time
appear to have been Wyandots; but after the French and Indian War
the Delawares retreated thither, and built their towns on the upper
Muskingum. Later, the Moravian missionaries removed their converts
thither, and erected upon the banks of this river their towns, Salem,
Schönbrunn, and Gnadenhütten. In 1785, Fort Harmar was placed at its
mouth; and thither, three years later, came the famous colony of New
England Revolutionary soldiers, under the leadership of Rufus Putnam,
which founded Marietta.—ED.
[98] The Little Kanawha was the terminus of the exploring expedition
of George Rogers Clark and Jones in 1772. They reported unfavorably
in regard to the lands; but settlers soon began to occupy them, and
they were a part of the grant given to Trent, Croghan, and others at
the treaty of Fort Stanwix (1768) as a reparation for their losses in
the previous wars. About the time of Croghan’s visit, Captain Bull, a
well-known Delaware Indian of New York, removed to the Little Kanawha,
and in 1772 his village, Bulltown, was the scene of a revolting massacre
of friendly Indians by brutal white borderers.—ED.
[99] Hockhocking is the local Indian name for a bottle-shaped gourd, to
which they likened the course of this river. Its chief historical event
is connected with Lord Dunmore’s War. Nine years after this voyage of
Croghan, Dunmore descended the Ohio with his flotilla, and disembarking
at the river with his army of regulars and frontiersmen—Clark, Cresap,
Kenton, and Girty among the number—marched overland to the Scioto,
leaving Fort Gower here to guard his rear. Signs of the earthwork of this
fortification are still visible. At this place, on the return journey,
the Virginia officers of the army drew up resolutions of sympathy with
the Continental Congress then in session at Philadelphia.—ED.
[100] The “Big Bend” of the river is that now known as Pomeroy’s Bend,
from the Ohio town at its upper point. Alum Hill was probably West
Columbia, Mason County, West Virginia. See Lewis, _History of West
Virginia_ (Philadelphia, 1889), p. 109.—ED.
[101] The Kanawha takes its name from a tribe of Indians who formerly
lived in its valley, but they were destroyed by the Iroquois in the early
eighteenth century. Céloron called it the Chinondaista, and at its mouth
buried a plate which is now in the museum of the Virginia Historical
Society, at Richmond. Gist surveyed here for the Ohio Company in 1752;
later, Washington owned ten thousand acres in the vicinity, and visited
the spot in 1774. That same year, the battle of Point Pleasant was fought
at the mouth of the Kanawha by Colonel Andrew Lewis’s division of Lord
Dunmore’s army; and the succeeding year, Fort Randolph was built to
protect the frontiers. Daniel Boone retired hither from Kentucky, and
lived in this neighborhood four years (1791-95), before migrating to
Missouri.—ED.
[102] The word Scioto probably signified “deer,” although it is said by
David Jones to mean “hairy” river, from the multitude of deer’s hairs
which floated down the stream. The valley of the Scioto is famous in
Western annals. During the second half of the eighteenth century it was
the chief seat of the Shawnees whose lower, or “Shannoah,” town has been
frequently mentioned in the Indian transactions which we have printed.
The Shawnees, on their withdrawal up the valley, built the Chillicothe
towns, where Pontiac’s conspiracy was largely fomented. These were the
starting point of many raids against the Kentucky and West Virginia
settlements. From these villages Mrs. Ingles and Mrs. Dennis made their
celebrated escapes in 1755 and 1763 respectively. During all the long
series of wars closing with Wayne’s victory in 1794, the intractable
Shawnees were among the most dreaded of the Indian enemy.—ED.
[103] The result of this message in regard to the French traders, is thus
given in the official version of the journal:
“26th. Several of the Shawanese came there & brought with them 7 French
Traders which they delivered to me, those being all that resided in their
Villages, & told me there was just six more living with the Delawares,
that on their return to their Towns they would go to the Delawares & get
them to send those French Traders home, & told me they were determined
to do everything in their power to convince me of their sincerity & good
disposition to preserve a peace.”—ED.
[104] Big Bone Lick, in Boone County, Kentucky, was visited by the French
in the early eighteenth century. It was a landmark for early Kentucky
hunters, who describe it in terms similar to those used by Croghan. At
the beginning of the nineteenth century, scientists took much interest
in the remains of the mammoth (or mastodon)—the “elephant’s bones”
described by Croghan. Thomas Jefferson and several members of the
American Philosophical Society, at Philadelphia, attempted to secure a
complete skeleton of this extinct giant; and a number of fossils from the
lick were also sent to Europe. Dr. Goforth of Cincinnati undertook an
exploration to the lick at his own expense (1803), but was later robbed
of the result. The store of huge bones is not yet entirely exhausted,
specimens being yet occasionally excavated—the present writer having
examined some there in 1894.—ED.
[105] It is a curious mistake on Croghan’s part to designate the Kentucky
as the Holston River. The latter is a branch of the Tennessee, flowing
through the mountains of Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia.
Its valley was early settled by Croghan’s friends, Scotch-Irish from
Pennsylvania. It is probable that, as the Kentucky’s waters come from
that direction, he had a confused idea of the topography.—ED.