made to contain about two gallons and com
pleting the contents of the tree, we took up
our line of march. Providing me with a switch
and placing me next to the horse, Wawpaw-
mawquaw followed, ordering me to urge him
forward, and whenever he lagged touching
me with his whipping stick and pointing to the
lazy animal would cry, "Howh caucheeh!"
meaning that I should quicken his gait. This
employment gave me a little excitement and
helped to rouse me from a lethargy produced
by sickness and weariness; but from which
nothing could have effectually quickened me,

69



save the certain expectation of death the mo
ment that from any cause I should be unable
to proceed.

From the conduct of the Indians I suspected,
what I afterwards found to be the fact, that
after my late attempt to escape from them I
became the property of Wawpawmawquaw by
purchase from the other Indian, who now ex
ercised no control over me. This gave me some
comfort, as my former master (a Shawnee),
besides being an ugly-looking fellow and having
something sinister in his countenance, evi
denced a very cruel and savage disposition and
withal great meanness and selfishness; and,
indeed, to me seemed destitute of every manly
feeling; while Wawpawmawquaw (the son of
a Mohawk chief, now from the almost utter
extinction of his nation united with the Shaw-
nees), though in battle fierce as brave, was at
other times (for a savage) humane and benev
olent. His person, a little above the middle
size, was well formed, combining activity with
strength; his face was fine, his countenance
open and intelligent, and his bearing noble and
manly. True, like all Indians, under deep
wrongs he was vindictive; but while some of
his nation, deserting its ranks, fought on the
side of its oppressors, disdaining to aid his
natural enemies to crush the remnant of his
race, he remained unchangeable in his oppo
sition to the "pale face," bravely resisting
their continued aggressions so long as there

70



of



appeared to be the slightest hope of preventing
their further encroachment; then yielding to
the power of circumstances, submitting calmly
to his fate.

Having traveled since morning about thirty
miles, two hours before sunset we forded a
large stream (then to me waist high) to which
Wawpawmawquaw, pointing, said, "Miami";
and which from its course here, a little north
of west, from its long rapid, and from the
appearance of the banks on both sides, I have
since been satisfied that we crossed about two
miles above Sidney. We encamped in the
evening about six miles beyond the Miami at a
small creek; where, for the first time in thirty-
six hours making a hearty meal, I slept quietly
through the night and awoke in the morning
greatly refreshed.

In the course of a few hours traveling this
morning, crossing a great many small branches
running in various directions and then passing
through a very extensive prairie, we came to
a stream running northwardly, and following
its course until noon halted by the side of a
small rivulet. Having no provisions Wawpaw
mawquaw went to hunt some, but soon returned
unsuccessful. Just at this time a large hawk
flying over our heads with a snake in its talons
and alighting on a tree a short distance from
us was brought down with the rifle, and being
dressed by plucking out the larger and singe
ing off the smaller feathers, and then boiled



f)t Sto&ian Captiiritp



in our brass kettle with a quantity of milkweed,
in about half an hour furnished us a dinner of
flesh, soup, and greens. Even the Indians
ate sparingly; for myself, though hungry, I
found the hawk so tough and strong that I
could eat but a few mouthfuls ; as for the soup
and greens, without salt the taste was not only
insipid, but sickening.

About the middle of the afternoon we met a
small company of Indian hunters, the first
human beings we had seen since we left the
Ohio. Here, resting awhile, after making, as
I supposed, various inquiries about their own
families, Wawpawmawquaw related all the par
ticulars of their late expedition, describing by
the most significant gestures their ambush, our
approach, their firing, the fall of one man
and the escape of the other by swimming, their
taking me prisoner, and finally exhibiting the
scalp as a trophy of their exploit. This rela
tion was heard by the hunters with profound
attention, interrupted only at suitable times
with proper expressions of wonder or of praise ;
after which, purchasing of them for a small
silver brooch a few pieces of dried venison, we
resumed our journey, traveling near the bank
of the same stream (which I afterward found
to be the Auglaize) until sunset, then supping
on boiled venison, lay down to rest.

Still traveling down the Auglaize, about
three hours after sunrise on the morning of the
twelfth of July we came in sight of an Indian

72



of <. ffi.



village, when Wawpawmawquaw, cutting a long
pole, tied the scalp to the end of it and elevating
it over his head raised the scalp-halloo, a shrill
whoop, which both Indians repeated frequently
until we entered the town. Here we found
all its inhabitants assembled; more than fifty
men, women, and children collected in front
of the nearest cabin, who, as soon as the first
salutations by the principal men were ended,
seating themselves, some on logs and some on
the ground, listened with deep attention while
Wawpawmawquaw with that gravity of man
ner and those intonations of voice peculiar to
Indian chiefs and warriors again told the story
of my captivity. He was proceeding at last
to describe the act of tomahawking and scalp
ing the unfortunate white man when a little
old Indian, suddenly springing upon me and
throwing me down with violence, gave a loud
shout, accompanied with many extravagant and
furious gesticulations, and vociferating (as I
was afterwards told) that he had vanquished
his enemy. Immediately all the women began
to scream and the children, down to the small
papoose, setting up a long shrill war-whoop,
gathered around me. I clung to Wawpawmaw
quaw, but young as I was I should have been
compelled to run the gauntlet through the
women and infant warriors had I not, from
great debility occasioned by dysentery, been
scarcely able to move faster than a walk.
About noon that day we arrived at another

73



village on the Auglaize. Here, also, the inhab
itants flocked out to meet us, and in like man
ner were entertained with an account of the
late expedition of the Indians and the story of
my captivity; but although the women and
children manifested a great deal of curiosity,
examining my dress and scanning me from head
to feet, none of them offered me any rudeness.
An elderly, noble-looking Indian, whom I took
to be the village chief, now led us to his cabin,
where his wife, who appeared to be a very
mild and humane woman, gave us first some
boiled hominy and then a little corn cake and
boiled venison. This to me, at that time
more than half starved, was a most delicious
repast. I ate very heartily and rising from my
seat and handing my kind hostess the bowl out
of which I had eaten, bowing low, gratefully
thanked her. She smiled and only said, Onee,
that is right, you are welcome/ or, as if
wishing to lessen the sense of the favor con
ferred, "It is nothing."

From this village we traveled leisurely on,
occasionally passing an Indian hut, and toward
evening stopped at the cabin of Wawpunnoo,
a tall stout warrior, a brother of Wawpaw-
mawquaw. His wife was quite a handsome
woman, delicately formed and much fairer than
the generality of squaws; she seemed to pos
sess withal a very amiable disposition, and
bore the churlish treatment of her husband with
a meekness and patience that would adorn a

74



of



Christian; although it was evident she felt
mortified that others should witness his unkind
conduct. By the by, the Indians in general are
not kind and affectionate to their women, whom
they treat rather as slaves than as compan
ions, compelling them not only to perform the
drudgery of the household, but even to work
in the field, it being thought disgraceful for an
Indian to labor. I have often seen families
traveling, and while the poor squaw, bending
under the weight of a heavy load, and the girls,
carrying packs or the smaller children on their
shoulders, were laboring along, the lazy Indian
in front might be seen with nothing but his
rifle and blanket, and the boys with only bow
and arrows or a reed blowgun.

This night for the first time since my captiv
ity I slept under a shelter; and lying on a deer
skin with a blanket over me, slept comfortably.
The next morning we breakfasted early and a
little before noon of the thirteenth of July, after
a journey of nearly six days and traveling about
one hundred and eighty miles, we arrived at the
point of the confluence of the Auglaize and
Maumee, or Miami of the Lake. Here, dis
posing of their deer skins to a British Indian
trader, the Indians crossed over the Miami to a
small bark cabin near its bank and directly oppo
site to the point; and leaving me in charge of
its occupant, an old widow, the mother of
Wawpawmawquaw, departed for their homes,
a village on the river about one mile below.

75



CHAPTER VI

COOH-COO-CHEEH, the old squaw in
whose charge Wawpawmawquaw had
left me, being in that advanced stage of
life in which we seek for rest and quiet, appre
hending no doubt from my squalid appearance
and diseased state an increase of her cares and
labors, at first received me with reluctance; but
surveying my emaciated form and examining
my scratched and festered limbs, my swelled
feet, retaining when pressed the print of the
finger, and my toes, from the friction of the
sand collected in my moccasins in frequently
fording creeks, raw and worn almost to the
bone, her pity was excited, some of the dor
mant feelings of the mother were awakened,
and she soon began to apply herself to my relief.
Having first effected at the river a complete
ablution of my person, she proceeded to wash
my clothes, in the meantime compelling me to
lie on a blanket for three or four hours under
the scorching sun until my back was one entire
blister; then boiling a strong decoction of red
oak and wild cherry bark and dewberry root,
of which I drank frequently, and in which I
occasionally soaked my feet for several days,
she effected in a short time a perfect cure.

She was a princess of the Wolf tribe of the
Iroquois formerly living on the Sorel. Her
person, about the ordinary stature, was stout

77



and clumsy; her features were rather homely
and her expression generally harsh and repul
sive, though at times when her thoughts were
withdrawn from the deep and weightier mat
ters of futurity, or when, no longer conversing
with the spirits of other worlds, she felt that
she was an inhabitant of this and resumed her
interest in its concerns, she was cheerful and
occasionally quite sociable, relating many pleas
ant stories and amusing incidents of her early
life. She was, besides, a sort of priestess to
whom the Indians applied before going on, any
important war expedition, inquiring whether
they should be successful; and from whom
they generally received answers framed in such
obscure and ambiguous terms as to confirm
and increase her reputation, even when an ex
pedition was most disastrous. Cooh-coo-cheeh
was also esteemed a very great medicine
woman, eminently skilful in the preparation of
specifics believed to be of great efficacy, but
whose extraordinary virtues were more particu
larly attributed to her powerful incantations
and her influence with the good spirits, with
whom she professed to hold daily intercourse.

Her husband had been a distinguished war
chief of the Mohawks, a nation formerly occu
pying the country along the St. Lawrence as
far as Lake Ontario and that bordering on
Lakes George and Champlain. This nation
toward the close of the seventeenth century,
or about the year 1670, confederating with the

78



of <* Jft,



Senecas, the Oneidas, the Cayugas, and the
Onondagas, and forming what was then called
the Five Nations (since, by the addition of the
Tuscarawas expelled from North Carolina,
called the Six Nations) conquering most of
the nations southward and west of them,
claimed the territory as far west as the Mis
sissippi and southward to the Cherokee or
Tennessee River. Utterly destroying some
nations, of whom not a vestige now remains,
and incorporating others whom they had van
quished, they formed a powerful confederacy,
and besides, possessing superior bravery and
consummate skill in war, they were formidable
to the western tribes, in their wars with whom
they were generally successful. The Mohawks
were the early and firm allies of the British
and maintained their supremacy over the north
ern tribes until about the year 1770, when,
being totally defeated by the American colo
nists, they lost their ascendancy, yielded their
claim of paramount authority, and, reduced
and scattered, were in turn incorporated with
other Indian nations over whom they had once
ruled.

After this signal defeat and loss of the Mo
hawks the husband of Cooh-coo-cheeh with
his family, consisting of his wife, three sons,
and a daughter, had removed from the St.
Lawrence and settled at the Shawnee village
a mile below the mouth of the Auglaize. In
the victory of the Indians over a part of the

79



f)e



army of Harmar under Hardin and Wyllys,
in October, 1790, in a furious charge made
against the regulars, while in the act of toma
hawking a soldier he received a mortal wound
from a bayonet, and dying on his way home
was buried on the bank of the Maumee about
twenty miles from the battle-ground. 14

Soon after his death his widow chose her
residence and erected her bark cabin on the
spot now occupied by her; and having only a
few months before, at the feast of the dead,
with pious affection removed the remains of
her late husband from their first resting place,
interred them only a few rods above her dwell
ing, near to the war path, so that not only she
might enjoy the happiness of conversing with
him, but that his own spirit might be refreshed
from viewing the warriors as they crossed the

14 The "victory" by which Cooh-coo-cheeh was
widowed was the second of Harmar s two battles with
the Indians on the Maumee, October 22, 1790. The
white force engaged consisted of nearly 400 militia
under Colonel Hardin and 60 regulars under Major
Wyllys. When the encounter was joined the regulars
fought valiantly, as usual, but the militia failed to
support them and they were beaten off the field with
the loss of many men, including Major Wyllys, their
leader. Spencer s report of the way in which the
Mohawk chief met death accords well with our knowl
edge from white sources of the conduct of the savages
on this occasion. They seemed to have discarded
their usual tactics of caution, and forced the fighting
with the whites hand to hand. According to one
narrator, "the militia they appeared to despise, and
with all the undauntedness conceivable, threw down

80



of <. ftl.



Maumee on their war expeditions, until having
ended his probation and being prepared for
his journey, he should travel to the final abode
of good spirits in the land far west, abounding
with game, and enjoy all those several delights
which in the mind of an Indian constitute
heaven. Buried in a sitting posture facing the
west, by his side had been placed his rifle,
tomahawk, knife, blanket, moccasins, and
everything necessary for a hunter and a war
rior; and his friends had, besides, thrown
many little articles as presents into his grave,
at the head of which they placed a post about
four feet high, painted red and having near its
top, rudely carved, the image of a face; while
below was marked the number of scalps he had
taken in battle, scalps of all colors, of hair of
all lengths, which on some great occasions

their guns and rushed upon the bayonets of the
regular soldiers ; a number of them fell, but being so
far superior in numbers, the regulars were soon
overpowered, for while the poor soldier had his
bayonet in one Indian, two more would sink their
tomahawks in his head.* A letter written from
Fort Harmar by Captain Jonathan Heart, six weeks
after the battle of October 22, tells of a regular
soldier who, "being surrounded and in the midst
of the Indians, put his bayonet through six Indians,
knocked down the seventh, and the soldier himself
made the eighth dead man in the heap." The details
of this exploit may be exaggerated, yet they serve
to reflect the opinion of participants in the battle
as to the extraordinary ardor with which the Indians
pressed the attack.

81



might be seen streaming in the wind, suspend
ed from a high pole bending over his grave,
where I once counted nineteen, torn from the
heads of my unfortunate countrymen.

The family of Cooh-coo-cheeh consisted of
a dark Indian girl (an orphan) two years my
elder and a half Indian boy about a year
younger than myself, both her grandchildren
by her only daughter, now the wife of George
Ironside, a British Indian trader living at the
trading station on the high point directly oppo
site to her cabin, a few hundred yards above
the mouth of the Auglaize. 15 The boy, reputed
to be the son of the famous or rather infamous
renegade, Simon Girty, was very sprightly, but
withal passionate and wilful, a perfectly spoiled
child, to whom his mother gave the Mohawk
name of Ked-zaw-saw, while his grandmother
called him Simo-ne; the girl, rather homely
but cheerful and good natured, with bright,
laughing eyes, was named So-tone-goo, but
called by the old squaw, Quasay.

To those who have never seen the dwelling

15 George Ironside, at this time a leading trader of
the Maumee Valley, was born in 1760 and died at
Amherstburg, Canada, in 1830. For many years he
served in the British Indian Department. He was a
man of education, being an M. A. of King s College,
Aberdeen. Of his humanity no further testimonial
than Spencer s is needed. For numerous contem
porary references to Ironside at this time, see
"Henry Hay s Journal," edited by the present editor,
in the Wisconsin Historical Society Proceedings ,
1914, 208-61.

82



of



of an Indian priestess a description of the bark
cabin of Cooh-coo-cheeh may perhaps be worth
the reading. Covering an area of fourteen by
twenty-eight feet, its frame was constructed of
small poles, of which some, planted upright in
the ground, served as posts and studs, support
ing the ridge poles and eve bearers, while
others firmly tied to these by thongs of hickory
bark formed girders, braces, laths, and rafters.
This frame was covered with large pieces of
elm bark seven or eight feet long and three or
four feet wide; which being pressed flat and
well dried to prevent their curling, fastened to
the poles by thongs of bark, formed the weather
boarding and roof of the cabin. At its western
end was a narrow doorway about six feet high,
closed when necessary by a single piece of bark
placed beside it, and fastened by a brace, set
either within or on the outside as occasion re
quired. Within, separated by a bark partition
were two apartments, of which the inner one,
seldom entered but by the old squaw, was oc
cupied as a pantry, a spare bed room, and at
times as a sanctuary, where she performed her
incantations; the other, having on each side a
low frame covered with bark and overspread
with deerskins serving both for seats and bed
steads, was in common use by the family, both
as a lodging, sitting, cooking, and eating room.
On the ground in the center of this apart
ment was placed the fire; and over it, suspend
ed from the ridge-pole in the middle of an

83



aperture left for the passage of the smoke,
was a wooden trammel for the convenience of
cooking.

The site of this cabin was truly pleasant. It
stood a few rods from the northern bank of
the Maumee with its side fronting that river,
on an elevated spot, from which the ground
first gently descending about one hundred
yards northward thence gradually ascended to
the top of the tableland bounding the narrow
bottom, extending about two miles above and
the same distance below. On the high ground
was a beautiful open wood, principally of oak
and hickory; while the bottom, with the excep
tion of about five acres above the cabin culti
vated with corn and a small spot around it, was
covered with bushes, interspersed with saplings
and a few blue and white asli and elm trees.

Both banks of the Maumee above the Au-
glaize were steep and high; that on which our
cabin stood was covered with willows, while
the opposite bank down to the point, being
swept by the current, here slightly curving
northeastwardly as it mingled with the waters
of its tributary stream, was entirely bare.
Immediately below the point the Auglaize,
running from the southwest and bending north
eastwardly near its mouth, washing the eastern
side of the point, entering obliquely and min
gling its current with the Maumee, occasioned
in freshets a whirl and boiling of the water
in the center, and strong eddies on both sides

84



of



of the river; but in a low stage the water below
the point and for some distance up each river
was perfectly still. The Maumee, above the
point about one hundred and twenty yards
wide and directly below it a hundred and
seventy, is here, in its center, in the lowest
stage of water about seven feet deep; although
its depth where it has a current is ordinarily
not more than three. It abounds with excellent
fish, which the Indians generally take with a
gig or shoot with arrows and sometimes with
rifle balls; but in this latter method of taking
them, requiring great judgment and a prac
ticed eye, they are rarely successful, partic
ularly where the water is deep and very clear;
the fish seeming to be within a few inches of
the surface when he is at the same time so far
below it that the ball, flattening, does not
reach him.

On the south side of the Maumee for some
distance below the mouth and extending more
than a mile up the Auglaize to an Indian vil
lage, the low rich bottom, about three-quarters
of a mile in width, was one entire field covered
with corn, which, being in tassel, presented a
beautiful appearance. It is, perhaps, not gen
erally known that formerly the Indian women
inhabiting large villages wherever it was prac
ticable cultivated portions of the same field,
separated from each other only by spaces of a
few feet, and varying in size according to the
number and strength of their families; seldom

85



|)e



raising corn as an article of commerce, but
merely to furnish bread for their own subsist
ence. Around these large fields they made no
inclosures; nor, indeed, having no cattle, hogs,
nor sheep, were fences necessary. As for their
few horses, they were either driven out into
the woods or secured near their cabins, and
having bells on, were easily prevented from
trespassing by the boys, whose duty it was,
by turns, while amusing themselves with their
bows and arrows, to protect the fields.

I had lived in my new habitation about a
week; and having given up all hope of escap
ing, which I now considered impossible, began
to regard it as my future home. True, the
home from which I had been torn and the be
loved parents from whom I felt that I was for
ever separated were seldom from my thoughts;
yet I strove to be cheerful, and by my ready
obedience to ingratiate myself with Cooh-coo-
cheeh, for whose kindness I felt grateful; and
who, with the blessing of Divine Providence,
having restored me to health, took some
pains to comfort and amuse me. Her son-in-
law, a respectable Indian trader, supplied her
occasionally with a few necessaries; while from
the Indians, who consulted her on most impor
tant matters, she received presents of venison
and skins and brooches, the common circula
ting medium among them. Her household
furniture consisted of a large brass kettle for
washing and sugar making; a deep, close-cov-

86



of <. ffi. g>ymttt



ered, copper hominy kettle; a few knives, tin
cups, pewter and horn spoons, sieves, wooden
bowls, and baskets of various sizes; a hominy
block, and four beds and bedding comprising
each a few deerskins and two blankets; so that,
altogether, her circumstances were considered
quite comfortable.

Her dress like that of the old squaws in gen
eral was very plain and simple, consisting of a
calico shirt extending about six inches below