I
. .V.
The Indian Captivity
of O. M. Spencer
i ~l
-4
Classics
The Indian Captivity
/O.M. Spencer
\t
FORT WASHTNGTON IN 179O
TA Statt Historical Society of Wisconsin
With Frontispiece and Map
R. R, DONNELLEY & SONS COMPANY
CHRISTMAS, MCMXVII
I OQ\
.
Classics
The Indian Captivity
0/O.M. Spencer
\%
EDITED BY
MILO MILTON QUAIFE
Superintendent of
The Stale Historical Society of Wisconsin
With Frontispiece and Map
Haftesibc press,
R. R. DONNELLEY & SONS COMPANY
CHRISTMAS, MCMXVII
S7
* * < I
preface
series of The Lakeside Classics, of
which this is the fifteenth volume, occu
pies an unique position in the history
of publishing. The original purpose of publi
cation can best be expressed by quoting the
following extract from the introduction of
the first volume, a reprint of "The Autobiog
raphy of Benjamin Franklin. "
"This little volume goes forth as a modest
protest against the present craze for so-called
editions de luxe books printed in unread
able type on hand-made paper, on hand
presses, and sold at prices prohibitory to all
except the rich. ... In opposition, this vol
ume stands for the machine-made book. Its
paper, its typesetting, its presswork, and its
binding are all products of the very latest
labor-saving machinery. It aims to be read
able rather than eccentric; plain rather than
decorative; tasteful rather than unique; useful
rather than useless ; withal to hold to the essence
of the art of the old masters of book-making,
and not to copy the mechanical shortcomings
which they, themselves, strove so hard to
overcome."
This book was not for sale, but was dis
tributed gratuitously among the friends and
v 965817
preface
patrons of The Lakeside Press. By chance,
the "Franklin" was ready for distribution
about the Christmas season, and it was made
the bearer of the Christmas good wishes of
The Press. The Publishers did not plan to
establish a sustained series issued annually,
but thought that they would occasionally add
to the series as a book or manuscript of un
usual interest, and not readily obtainable by
the public, presented itself.
But the first volume was received so enthu
siastically that it was followed by another the
next Christmas, and thus was established the
custom of the Publishers sending to their
friends and patrons their Yuletide felicitations
each season in the form of a volume of The
Lakeside Classics.
With the fifth volume, the original purpose
of the series was somewhat changed, as the
books ceased to be entirely a machine product.
In that year was established at The Lakeside
Press an apprenticeship school and a compre
hensive system of training the future workmen
of The Press. The typesetting of the volume
for that year was done in the School by boys
in the first few months of their training, and
the typesetting of all subsequent volumes has
been the work of the younger apprentices. As
the scope of the School widened, the press-
work and binding also were produced by the
older boys, so that for several years the vol
ume has been completely the product of the
vi
preface
apprentices. The fact that the workmanship
of these little books has maintained the high
standard of The Press may be regarded as
testimony to the ideals and accomplishment of
the School.
The School for Apprentices of The Lake
side Press is a pioneer in vocational education
in the printing industry and has obtained an
international reputation. Boys are appren
ticed as they graduate from grammar school;
the first two years they spend half their time
in the schoolroom and half in the factory.
The school work includes academic as well
as trade instruction. The following five years
they work full time in the factory, with the
exception of four hours a week during which
they continue to receive academic and trade
instruction in the School. Three classes have
now finished their full apprenticeship, and as
this volume goes to press there are more than
fifty graduates, all of whom are workmen of
more than usual skill and efficiency, through
out the various departments.
It has been the aim of the Publishers to
choose for these volumes material which is
distinctly American. With the publication
of the Autobiography of Gurdon S. Hubbard
was started a series of memoirs and sketches
covering the history of Chicago, from the
days of the trading post down to the Chicago
Fire of 1871; and so popular have been these
historical notes that with last year s volume
vii
the field was extended to include the early his
tory of the contiguous Northwest.
This year s volume is one of the many
accounts written by early settlers who were
taken and held in captivity by the Indians
during the first half of the last century. Un
fortunately, most of these accounts were writ
ten by persons of little education and no lit
erary ability and make poor reading. But
Mr. Spencer, the author of this volume, be
came a Methodist minister and later the edi
tor of a religious weekly, and was thus able
to bring a developed ability in writing to the
telling of his boyhood experiences. While
this narrative has the old-fashioned and rather
delightful Sunday-school flavor of his profes
sion and his time, it is told in a straightfor
ward and honest fashion, and conveys to the
reader a much truer picture of the habits and
character of the Indians of Ohio than many
other more imaginative and bloodcurdling tales.
The Publishers are again under obligation
to Dr. Milo Milton Quaife for discovering the
subject matter and for editing it. With this
little volume again come the Christmas Good
Wishes of
THE PUBLISHERS.
Vlll
f (gtotfcal gitttrotiurtfott
A r EAR ago in The Lakeside Classics was
published the life narrative of the am
bitious but unfortunate Sauk chieftain,
Black Hawk, who dominated the last Indian
war in the Old Northwest. In attempting to
evaluate the narrative the editor ascribed to it
a two-fold historical significance. First, as a
valuable source of information concerning the
events with which it immediately deals; sec
ond, and of more importance, as presenting the
viewpoint and state of mind of a typical rep
resentative of the red race upon the subject of
its four-century conflict with the white man
for the possession of the North American con
tinent. The present volume deals with one
aspect of the same struggle and, like its prede
cessor, possesses a two-fold significance. For
the immediate events with which it deals it is
a valuable source of historical information; it
constitutes, moreover, a skillful presentation of
a concrete instance of a class of events on the
frontier which inspired the borderers with a deep
and abiding loathing for their red neighbors.
When each of two races becomes imbued
with the idea that it is suffering grievous
wrongs at the hands of the other, as a conse
quence of which a deep-seated hatred and fear
ix
JIHgtorical
is conceived, the outcome, sooner or later, is
certain war to the knife to determine by an
application of the law of might the question
of right. Black Hawk s Autobiography makes
abundantly clear the red man s reason for
hating his white rival. The present narrative,
far less comprehensive than Black Hawk s,
merely relates the story of the Indian captivity
of a single white child. From this viewpoint
alone it would not now, after the lapse of a
century and a quarter, be worth reprinting.
But the reader who is gifted with some knowl
edge of life and a fair endowment of imagina
tion will see in it much more than the story of
the fortunes of youthful Oliver Spencer. In
it, as in a mirror, he will see the tremendous
drama of the westward march of white America
across the continent; the reduction of the
wilderness from a home for wild beasts and
savage men to the smiling abode of a peaceful
civilization; the grim tenacity with which the
untutored savage defended his native forest
against the white flood slowly, but none the
less surely, rolling on to engulf him; the play
of human nature, the vicissitudes of human
tragedy, the conflict of elemental forces; all
these things lie within the covers of the book
for him who has the gift to perceive them.
To orient ourselves into the historical sur
roundings of Spencer s narrative we must
make a brief survey of the concluding phase
of the American Revolution. That famous
JS^torical
struggle is commonly supposed to have ended
with the year 1/83. There was, however, a
long aftermath, chiefly relating to the region
west of the Alleghenies, so that in the West
the Revolution may fairly be said to have ended
with the conclusion of the Indian wars in 1795
and the transfer a year later of the British posts
to American control.
The reasons for this prolongation of the
Revolution in the West were numerous and
complex. Since our present concern is only
with a certain aspect of that struggle it will
suffice to take note of the relations between
the American people and the Indian tribes in
habiting the region north and west of the
Ohio River. By the Treaty of Paris in 1783
the sovereignty of the United States to all the
territory bounded by a line drawn through the
middle of the Great Lakes and, on the west,
the Mississippi River, was recognized. In the
making of this treaty the tribes of American
Indians had no voice. Yet during the Rev
olutionary War, Great Britain had actively in
stigated these tribes to join with her in waging
war on the American settlers of western
Pennsylvania and Virginia (the latter state
then including modern West Virginia and
Kentucky). The red man recognized no legal
right on the part of Great Britain to cede their
territory; on the contrary, her action in making
peace with their joint enemy was regarded as
a base desertion. As against civilized powers
xi
the new United States, by the treaty of 1783,
acquired a perfect title to the territory lying
east of the Mississippi and south of the Great
Lakes; as against the red inhabitants of this
vast region the American title had still to be
established.
The task was immensely complicated by the
presence of British sovereignty north of the
Lakes and by certain relations between Great
Britain and the new nation growing out of the
treaty of 1/83. There was naturally much
irritation between the two newly separated
branches of the English race. Neither nation
sought to perform with entire fidelity the obli
gations it had assumed in the treaty of peace.
Mutual recrimination over disregard of treaty
rights led, before many years, to a condition
which threatened a new war between England
and America. Year after year the former
declined to give up the northwestern posts,
from which she had promised in 1783 to with
draw her armies " with all convenient speed. "
Her real reasons for this manifest infraction of
treaty obligations were long withheld or dis
sembled. They are now recognized to have
been due at first to a policy of opportunism;
but at length to a natural desire to retain for
Canada control of the fur trade of the interior;
and as a means to this end to erect, from the
vast region between the Ohio and the Lakes,
a permanent Indian barrier state, which would
forever stand as a buffer between the new
xii
J^igtorical ^ntrotmction
American nation and Canada, and would insure
to the latter domination over the tribes of the
interior, and therewith the control of the
Indian trade.
Thus, when the new American nation moved
forward to the possession of its trans-Ohio
territory it encountered the resistance not
alone of the western tribes, but of these tribes
backed by the moral, and to a certain extent the
material, support of Great Britain. The gov
ernment of the United States was weakened,
too, by internal conditions. The Confederation
was but a shadow, which grew steadily thinner
until it completely dissolved about the year
1788. The transition to the new national
government of the United States was effected
in 1789, but it came into being burdened with
debt, and justly fearful, in view of existing
conditions, of speaking and acting boldly on
behalf of the nation s interests.
The people, as contrasted with the govern
ment, manifested no such timidity in taking
possession of their western inheritance. From
the beginnings of colonization in Massachu
setts and Virginia until the last step in the
march across the continent, the zeal of the
American people for westward expansion com
monly outran that of the government. So, in
the period under consideration, with the close
of the Revolution the tide of white settlement,
hitherto confined in the main to the south side
of the Ohio, began to overflow its barrier. The
xiii
expiring government of the Confederation
responded to the desire of the people by pro
viding, in the famous Ordinance of 1787, for
civil government and for the ultimate organiza
tion of states in the Northwest Territory. In
the same year, Congress sold to the Ohio Com
pany five million acres of land, and in 1788 the
company formally inaugurated its colonization
enterprise by founding Marietta at the mouth
of the Muskingum.
Therewith the American conquest of the
Indian Northwest may be said fairly to have
begun. The Revolution, a political success
for the Americans, had entailed widespread
economic disaster upon the colonists. Soldiers
discharged from the armies, business men who
had met with financial ruin, and in general all
who found the conditions of life difficult in
a time of general economic prostration, were
eager for westward migration. Quickly on
the heels of the Ohio Company of New Eng-
landers and its settlement at the mouth of the
Muskingum, came the formation of an associa
tion of New Jersey men for the exploitation of
the tract of land between the two Miami rivers.
In the spring of 1786, Benjamin Stites, formerly
from New Jersey but then a resident of Red
stone, Pennsylvania, engaged in a trading ven
ture down the Ohio. At Limestone (now
Maysville), Kentucky, he joined as volunteer
a party of settlers in pursuit of a band of
Indian marauders from across the Ohio. The
xiv
pursuit, as commonly in such cases, failed of
its immediate object, but it afforded Stites an
opportunity to view the country between the
Big and Little Miamis. By reason of the fact
that it formed a part of the great highway
taken by the rival war and raiding parties pass
ing between the Kentucky settlements south
of the Ohio and the Indian country north of
that stream this region had come to be known
as the "Miami slaughter house." Probably for
this reason it had been carefully shunned by
the numerous parties of settlers who had de
scended the Ohio in earlier years. Captivated
by its charm and the evidences of its natural
richness, Stites hastened to the East, bent on
obtaining possession of "the slaughter house "
region and there founding a colony.
In New York, Stites encountered a New
Jersey congressman, John Cleves Symmes, who
became actively interested in his project. A
visit to the Ohio country, made the following
year, convinced Symmes of the correctness of
Stites description of the tract in question.
Under Symmes leadership an association of
twenty-five influential New Jersey men was
formed to conduct the projected enterprise,
and Congress was petitioned for an extensive
grant of land. Without waiting for the action
of Congress, Symmes proceeded to dispose of
tracts of land to purchasers and prospective
settlers, and in general to put the colonizing
enterprise into execution. Because of his un-
XV
pgtorical
business-like procedure much confusion and
trouble resulted, but into this we need not enter
here. To Stites, Symmes conveyed ten thou
sand acres, to Mathias Denman a section of
land opposite the mouth of Licking River, while
for himself he reserved, as the site for a pro
posed metropolis, an extensive tract at the
confluence of the Big Miami with the Ohio.
From these several projects three aspiring
communities sprang at about the same time.
Stites, first in the field, founded in November,
1788, the town of Columbia at the mouth of
the Little Miami. A few weeks later Denman s
project assumed visible form in the platting on
his section of land of a town to which the
Kentucky pedagogue, John Filson, gave the
hybrid name Losantiville, signifying the town
opposite the mouth of the Licking. A year
or so later, Governor St. Clair quietly but
firmly replaced the name Losantiville with the
permanent title of Cincinnati. Slightly later
than its rivals, Symmes 1 town was laid out at
North Bend, now chiefly noted as the home
and burial place of William Henry Harrison.
Thus three towns, each expecting to become
the future metropolis of the Ohio Valley, were
started during the winter of 1789-90 in the
"Miami slaughter house. " Of the three, Cin
cinnati alone, midway both in point of geog
raphy and of chronology between its rivals, was
destined to realize its founders ambitious
hopes. With the fortunes of North Bend we
xvi
JS^torical
need not concern ourselves. Columbia, per
haps the most promising of all three, soon
proved unable to hold its own with Cincinnati,
its down-river neighbor. It lingered long as a
village, until finally, in 1873, it was absorbed as
a suburb by its erstwhile rival.
The most prominent settler of Columbia was
Colonel Oliver Spencer, father of our narrator.
Colonel Spencer was not only of the best Eng
lish descent, but, a point of greater importance,
he was entirely worthy of his ancestry. A
native of Connecticut, he removed at an early
age to Elizabethtown, New Jersey, where he
married the daughter of Robert Ogden. The
wife, like her husband, had excellent family
connections, the Ogden family of New Jersey
numbering a bishop, a chief justice, three
judges, a general, and five colonels, besides
numerous other worthies of lesser magnitude.
Colonel Spencer engaged in the tannery busi
ness with his father-in-law and was rapidly
acquiring wealth when the Revolution came to
alter his whole future course of life. Of his
military service the son speaks briefly. We
need note in this connection only that while he
served with credit throughout the war, rising
to the rank of colonel in the continental service,
he found himself at its close a ruined man, his
capital dissipated, and his home and tannery
(the latter one of the largest in America) gut
ted. Under such circumstances he turned a
ready ear to the project for colonization on the
xvii
Ohio, with the prospect it held out to men of
energy of beginning life anew under more favor
able circumstances than the settled East could
offer. Cincinnatians still pride themselves on
the high character of their forbears. To
none can they point with more reason for pride
than to the father of our narrator. Writing
to Symmes on May 16, 1789, of Spencer s
impending trip to view the Miami country,
Jonathan Dayton dwelt upon the importance
to their project of producing upon him a favor
able impression, saying that there was not
a person in New Jersey who could influence
more settlers to follow him, and that many who
were contemplating removal to the West were
awaiting his report before deciding the momen
tous matter.
The narrative of the son apprises us of the
outcome of the journey. Colonel Spencer,
like Stites before him, was charmed with the
aspect of the country, and at once entered into
arrangements for removing his family thither.
Accordingly in October, 1790, the toilsome
journey was begun, at first in wagons over the
famous Pennsylvania Road, then by flatboat
down the Youghiogheny and the Ohio to Co
lumbia. The conditions of life in the new
settlement, and in the neighboring Cincinnati
in the year 1791 are sufficiently indicated by
our narrative. In a word, the settlers task of
developing in the wilderness an abode of civi
lization was interrupted only by the ever present
xviii
menace of Indian foray and massacre. With
commendable promptness the new United
States government took measures for the pro
tection of the Miami settlements by establishing,
in the summer of 1789, a post at Cincinnati.
To it the name of Washington was given, and
for a few years it constituted the chief military
center of the United States. One might sup
pose that such an establishment in their midst
would have rendered the settlers immune from
Indian attack. For several years, however,
life in the "Miami slaughter house" was suffi
ciently thrilling to satisfy even the most adven
turous spirit, and many tales aside from those
recorded by Spencer have come down to us of
Indian attacks and slaughtering, not only at
Columbia and North Bend, but in the very
environs of Cincinnati itself. At the end of
six months of life under such circumstances oc
curred the abduction of youthful Oliver Spen
cer, which, with the ensuing captivity, furnishes
the principal theme of our narrative.
Before turning to the narrative itself, some
notice may be taken of the manner in which
the red men of the Northwest met the menace
of the white advance, and precipitated both the
first and the greatest Indian war in which the
United States ever engaged. Although the rec
ord of our Indian wars constitutes on the
whole a sorry story, we need not apologize for
the justice of our cause in the first of the long
series. If ever in history a war was unavoid-
xix
^ntro&uction
able this one may fairly be so regarded. Ever
since the close of the Revolution intermittent
raiding and murdering had occurred. Early in
1790 the hovering war cloud burst in earnest,
the natives forcing the issue by intercepting
and plundering the boats conveying settlers
down the Ohio. In July, Governor St. Clair
called upon Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Vir
ginia for military assistance and set in motion
his own forces. The main blow was directed
from Fort Washington against Miamitown, on
the site of the modern Fort Wayne. In Octo
ber, General Harmar attacked the place with
a force of some fourteen hundred men. The In
dians drew back before the blow and their vil
lages were destroyed. Harmar s main army was
not engaged, but two considerable detachments
from it waged bloody and unsuccessful conflicts
with the red men. The army returned to Fort
Washington, having lost in killed and wounded
nearly three hundred men. At the best it had
achieved a barren victory; at the worst a
"mortifying failure. " It was as though a blow
had been dealt a nest of hornets. The Indians,
momentarily stunned, were not cowed but only
rendered the more furious.
Harmar had penetrated to the very center
of Indian power. The natives promptly coun
tered by massacring the settlers at Big Bottom
near Marietta, on the night of January 2, 1791.
Proffers of peace to the red men proving un
availing, the American government prepared
XX
for a second invasion of the Indian country to
overawe the tribes and to establish in their
midst, at the forks of the Maumee, a perma
nent fortress. In the autumn of 1791, General
St. Clair set forth from Fort Washington on
this mission, but instead of accomplishing it
he led his army to the most terrible defeat in
American military annals. The Indians were
jubilant over the destruction of the American
army. But, although they did not realize it,
St. Clair s disaster had in no wise shaken the
real military power of the United States; and
the government, while still proffering the olive
branch, set steadily about the task of organizing
a new army which should succeed where those
of Harmar and St. Clair had failed. Almost
three years of preparation, under the vigor
ous leadership of General Wayne, ensued. At
length, in the summer of 1794, his army
set forth from Fort Washington to follow the
track, but not to repeat the example, of its
predecessors. On the site of the slaughter of
St. Glair s army, Wayne built Fort Recovery;
at the mouth of the Auglaize, where the
weary months of Spencer s captivity were
passed, the fortress grimly named Defiance
was erected; at the Fallen Timbers on August
20, 1794, the power of the northwestern tribes
was completely broken; at Miamitown, which
Harmar had raided and St. Clair had vainly
essayed to reach, another fort was built and the
conqueror s name was permanently attached
xxi
pgtorical ffintrotiucticm
to the spot; finally, in council at Greenville
in 1795, the tribesmen formally acknowledged
Wayne as their conqueror and ceded to the
United States the extensive tract covering,