CHIEF LOGAN: THE RED SPIRIT OF THE OHIO COUNTRY 🐢

It was a glorious time in the Buffalo Valley of Pennsylvania, near the Susquehanna River. It was here, in this fertile and scenic valley where Chief Logan spent his childhood; he would come to appreciate the poetic and naturalistic beauty of our future state in a way from which we have separated ourselves from; Logan would lament deeply over this. In this (his) time, Pennsylvania was a rich and pleasurable land, replete with portly hunting grounds, endless fishing in streams and rivers, and fresh farmland for crops and fruits to thrive. However, for Chief Logan, it would be short lived and bloody.

Logan (his Indian name was Tah-gah-jute, which means spying) was born of white and red parents in the Indian village of Osco, near Auburn, New York around 1725. His father was a Canadian who was abducted by members of the Oneida Tribe (Iroquois) and raised by them; when he grew to manhood, he married a member of the Cayuga tribe, and around the year 1725, the future Indian leader came into the world. Although his father had Roman Catholic roots, he became baptized by Moravian missionaries into the Protestant version of the faith; it would appear by early written records that Chief Logan himself was certainly no stranger to the “white mans” religion. It was said he could recite scripture as eloquently as his traditional Indian oral narratives. Outside of this, hardly anything is mentioned in any historical records of his childhood until he reaches young adult; it is here that Chief Logan, rapidly, carves out a reputation for himself. Quite early in his youth, he would master the arts of warfare, trapping, hunting, and scouting. He became a renowned expert in the handling and performance of the bow and arrow; he could also throw a tomahawk at a tremendously far distance with horrifying precision; however, even more impressively, was his oratory skills in diplomacy and peace-making among other tribes as well as white settlers. As a result of his peacekeeping and oratory skills, Chief Logan grew in fame and acquired an impressive amount of admirers from all white settlers, trappers, militia, Indian chiefs from various tribes, and even the likes of Generals from various forts in the Pittsburgh and Ohio Valley regions; his fame and respect spread everywhere. From Ohio, various parts of north and southwestern Pennsylvania, New York, and even Canada, Logan was known and heavily relied upon as an honest negotiator, peacekeeper, impressive informer and conveyed, quite impressively, with ‘hardened’ warriors, his epistles on admonishing them against senseless attacks on white establishments throughout his traveling regions. In a certain time in his life, he convinced himself that white authority would be generous and cordial with the negotiations of exchange with Indian lands throughout the entire Ohio Valley area as well as upstate New York and further. It is accurately documented in the annals of Pennsylvania Colonial History that Chief Logan was the administrator and spokesperson for many tribes; Benjamin Franklin, it is claimed, was said to have spoken with Logan concerning the living arrangements of the various Indian tribes west of (present-day) Philadelphia after various negotiation treaties. Franklin was impressed with his tone of voice and oratory presentations, even though they were heavily laden with Iroquois and Algonquin accents. For several years, Chief Logan preserved and presented peaceful episodes on the Ohio frontier. But things soon changed. Tragedy and avarice would prevail. Despite Logan’s impeccable record and displays of peacekeeping and treaty preservations, the acquirement of lands throughout the Ohio Valley proved too much for white settlers. As more came into the region, the lands and forests became irresistible to trappers, fur traders, and about every European passing through; more importantly, the continuous arrival of white settlers also was paving the road to the west. As word spread of this land, traffic grew with insatiable conquest to obtain a piece of it. On the 30^th day of April,1774, blood would water the grounds of the Ohio Valley/Beaver County/Monongalia regions.

On this day, Logan was away from his family due to a hunting expedition; to preserve peace and protection for his family, he assigned them several of his best warriors, but through some strange sets of coincidences, they created their own plans of conviviality that, most likely, Logan would have been put in remonstrance over. Daniel Gatehouse, a Virginia frontiersman, who possessed a formidable disposition with certain members of the Mingo tribe invited the warriors as well as Logan’s family to be guests that day at his fort; the Mingos could not resist because they knew there would be replete supplies of rum, food, clothing and games (challenges). As to what happened next, the number of people involved are still presently debated; from one reporter the number of men was eight; Heckewelder himself, one of the most venerated historians on the Native Americans in the Ohio Valley, puts the number at an even twelve. In either case, these party of men and members of Logan’s family crossed the southside of the Ohio River just to the front of the mouth of Yellow Creek (about 40 miles northwest of Fort Pitt near present-day Pittsburgh.) There they entered a lodge called Baker’s Tavern, a local rum-seller. There was also an infant in the party that belonged to Logan’s sister. By most of the accounts that survive, the activities that commenced early in the day were cheerful and cordial. As afternoon approached, some of the Indians began to drink heavily; one that did not was Logan’s brother, John Petty. Sometime later, Logan’s brother and the other male Indians were challenged to shoot at a target; the Indians went first. When they all had a chance to discharge their weapons, they were shot down in cold blood by the settlers in the tavern, including Logan’s sister, her only baby, his mother and brother.

When Logan received word of the tragedy that was bestowed upon his family, it is said he wept and then went into an uncontrollable rage of anger; he sought the bloodiest vengeance that he could afford. In his own words, Logan lamented, “Logan thought only of revenge; Logan will not weep.” Before this tragedy struck Logan and his family, an assembly of chiefs were in favor of going to war to protect their lands; ironically, Logan was not in favor of this decision. “I admit you have just cause of complaint. But you must remember that, you too, have sometimes done wrong. By war you can only harass and distress the frontier settlements for a time and then the Virginians will come like the trees in the woods in number and drive you from the good lands you possess, from the hunting grounds so dear to you.” The chiefs themselves sided with Logan and no war was declared; however, the stage was prepared for one of the bloodiest raids ever witnessed and written of in the Ohio Valley region. Prior to this tragedy, Chief Logan was known as a wise and astute negotiator, among white settlers as well as his own brethren; he was a skilled hunter, tracker, chief and great warrior among his people. However, rage and anger would consume his soul. He quickly transformed himself from a chief of peace to a warrior of revenge, and revenge he would have. By nature, Logan was a disciple of peace, albeit a ridiculed one by, sometimes, his fellow Red Man; earlier in his youth, above all things, Chief Logan did what he could to avoid war; this course would prove, however, to be short lived. As more white settlers arrived in the Ohio Valley, disputes about land privilege grew violent and replete with avarice. In 1774, the British Parliament passed an Act (Quebec Act) which made the lands of the Ohio River, the purchase or payment to Native American tribes. These lands were now in the possessions of Quebec Territory, secured and maintained by local Virginians; the Governor was Lord Dunmore. Further, according to the “Colonial Records of Pennsylvania”, laws were in place that rewarded Indian scalps by white settlers at the price of 150 Spanish silver dollars; women and children were priced at fifty! Little did Chief Logan know, under the eyes of even his watchful and confident supervision, most of the white settlers arriving in the region possessed no interest in implementing friendly terms with his people.

After the attack along Yellow Creek, many Indians were assembling for a bloody retaliation; Chief Logan being the protagonist as the King of the Avengers. He became obsessed with slaughtering and scalping as many white settlers as possible; he decided that he would accrue ten scalps for each member of his slain family. To achieve this, rather than travel by canoe down the Ohio and Beaver rivers, he set out on foot, through all the ancient deer and Indian trails created long before his birth. In present day Beaver and Allegheny County and considerable portions of western Ohio and northern West Virginia, no person knew this terrain and forest better than he. He preferred to travel alone rather than with his warriors; he would strike suddenly and ferociously, only leaving a trail of blood and death in every location he encountered.

Around the 9^th of May 1774, Logan, briefly, grouped with a band of warriors and set on foot deep into the Monongahela Country. Patiently, for a length of two weeks, he waited for the perfect moment to strike a frontier family that was newly settled in. When his moment came, he and his warriors were struck with merciless ferocity! A family by the name of Spicer (according to written accounts) was horrifically annihilated. A husband and wife and six of their children were killed and scalped and two more children taken prisoner. A few days later, two more settlers were killed along Dunbar Creek (in present-day Fayette County, Pennsylvania); by the end of June, Chief Logan had claimed sixteen scalps for the price of his murdered family that totaled four members. As the summer months progressed, Logan unleashed a reign of terror in the Ohio Valley; he made stops in, particularly, southwestern Pennsylvania (he even lived, for a time, in present-day Rochester) where he was known as a shrewd diplomat and audacious titan. His name was replete with terror in this particular region of our present-day region that includes Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. As word of his bloodthirsty reputation spread, local militias in the varying regions began to organize themselves in an order to capture and/or kill him. Chief Logan went from a peaceful and valiant leader of the Mingo to a vengeful and cruel chief who was intent on completely abolishing white influence in the regions he inhabited. Logan felt the heartbeat of his entire race. He knew war and plundering meant a tragic end, eventually. The Yellow Creek Massacre, from which Logan never recovered, was etched into the surrounding tribes of the region because of his deadly raids; on the flip side of the coin, Indian distrust and removal became a motivating factor for more of the arriving white settlers into the area; as the months went forward, so did the violence continue. After accruing his shocking number of scalps and executions, Logan seems to have cooled his anger off; by most accounts, he began a period of serious self-examination. He wanted peace again. During one of his raids on a white settler village, he caught a certain man, Major Robinson, held him prisoner for a time and was officially adopted into Logan’s tribe; during his stay, he forced him to write a letter to a one Captain Cresap. Logan dictated and edited the note; several revisions, the note read in this manner:

To Captain Cresap:

“What did you kill my people on Yellow Creek for? The white people killed my kin at Conestoga a great while ago and I thought nothing of that; but you killed my kin again on Yellow Creek and took my cousin prisoner. Then I thought I must kill too; and I have been three times to War since; but the Indians are not angry, only myself.” Captain John (Chief) Logan, July 21^st, 1774

In any event, Captain Cresap was not responsible for the slaughter of Logan’s family, but it was difficult to convince him of this because of the information he was given by various informants on both sides; it is truly difficult to know what Logan felt towards the perpetrators whom he laid at least a certain level of responsibility towards the murder of his family; his inevitable result was, once again, rage. This time, he took a band of scouts with him to the banks of the Holston and Clinch rivers near the southwest corner of Virginia where it was reported to him that Captain Cresap had established a residence. Logan and his band reacted violently and took five more scalps, including the John Roberts family, save one boy whom they took as captive. Captain Cresap and his family were also included in the slaughter; it is worthy to note than on the day of Logan’s family execution, Captain Cresap was at Wheeling rather than anywhere near Yellow Creek where the massacre took place (his whereabouts are accounted for in local militia journals of the time.) As Logan’s warriors continued their raid deep into Virginia, by early Autumn, the Delaware Indians were driven from the Muskingum by local Virginia (British) militia and Logan had claimed thirty more scalps throughout the Ohio Valley and Virginia areas, as he had sworn, he would.

The result of these slaughter and raids would result in Dunmore’s War; however, in the infancy of this conflict, it would be labeled “Logan’s War.” As this senseless slaughter continued, the raids in the Ohio Valley region exceeded anyone’s expectation of a peaceful result; Logan’s reputation as a bloodthirsty chief and merciless murderer of white settlers, were replete, especially in areas such as present-day Beaver and Rochester, Pennsylvania where Logan lived for a time with his family; he was quite familiar and a well known diplomat in this exclusive region for a lengthy period of time before conducting violent raids throughout the Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia territories. By now, even the other chiefs, such as Cornstalk, Blue Jacket, White Eyes could hardly watch the blood spilling forth on their lands; Logan wreaked with vengeance and wore the armor of bravery like no chief in his lifetime. While he did not take part in Dunmore’s War or even the Battle of Point Pleasant. By this turn of events, he settled his anger with peace and began to commence on negotiations so that the Long Knives and Shawnee and Mingo could end their long feud, Pennsylvania promised to purchase lands from the Indians of the region by method of payment; however, in Virginia, they certainly displayed no honorary intentions of giving anything in exchange to Indians in order to obtain large tracts of land; more bloodshed, during the next several years continued in an effort to secure lands in the Ohio Valley for the purpose of white settlements, nothing more. Almost every treaty agreement that was created at Fort Pitt, and the surrounding regions between the British and French armies with the Indians was never permanent. The ravage and the chaos that followed for the continuing years is responsible for the creation of our present surrounding counties, municipalities, and cities.

In his final years, Logan succumbed to grief and alcoholism; he never fully recovered, it seems, from the Yellow Creek Massacre of his family. He regrouped along the Sandusky River and made his way in the northcentral part of Ohio near Lake Erie. He still maintained, as best he could, friendly relations with English settlers of the region; he even adopted a white woman into his tribe to replace the sister he had lost years earlier.

But fate would soon overtake the aged chief; on one particular incident a writer mentions in one of his journals that Logan, during a drunken rage, had a physical altercation with his wife; panic stricken and believing he would be in jeopardy by her family, he fled on foot at an encampment some miles from his Sandusky residence; his nephew, Tod-kah-dohs, had caught up with the aging warrior; him and Logan, by a number of written accounts, began a verbal exchange of contention that caused Logan to threaten him as well as his family; his nephew, being aware of Logan’s temper, caused him to strike the old chief with a tomahawk to the back of the head; he died instantly. There is another account of Logan being shot by his nephew as he was coming down from his horse in a rage to attack him. Whatever of whoever struck first, Tod-kah-dohs is the person who claims his death; the exact date and his place of burial are lost to the historical records of our entire region although the traditional date of his death is in the year 1780. What is not lost, however, is Logan’s eloquence and remorse for a violent and bloody past; he was known to have felt a considerable degree of guilt for slaughtering so many white settlers; he is also known to have been proud for his atrocious deeds. This was based on part of a struggling duality that was owed to his people and keeping peace with white authority in the area in an effort to prevent destruction and mayhem. Chief Logan himself says it best in his most famous speech, Logan’s Lament:

“I appeal to any white man to say, if ever he entered Logan’s cabin hungry, and he gave him not meat; if ever he came cold and naked, and he clothed him not. During the course of the last long and bloody war, Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for peace. Such was my love for the whites, that my countrymen pointed as they passed, and said, Logan is the friend of the white men. I have even thought to live with you but for the injuries of one man. Col. Cresap, the last spring, in cold blood, and unprovoked, murdered all the relations of Logan, not sparing even my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This has called on me for revenge. I have sought it: I have killed many: I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my country, I rejoice at the beams of peace. But do not harbor a thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one.”

Thomas Jefferson was so moved by this speech that he even recorded it in his “Notes on the State of Virginia”; he makes mention of Chief Logan in a special letter her wrote to a colleague of his. I quote this entire letter in full because of the mention of local curiosity Jefferson makes mention of.

To John Gibson

Philadelphia May 31. 1797.

Dear Sir

“In my Notes on the state of Virginia I have given a translation of the celebrated speech of Logan to Ld. Dunmore with a statement of facts necessary to make it better understood. A Mr. Luther Martin of Maryland has lately come forward, denies the facts and also the authenticity of the speech. As far as my memory serves me we received the speech as a translation of yours, and tho’ I do not recollect that I have heard the facts from yourself, yet I think I understood that you stated them substantially in the same way. I have to ask the favor of you to give me what information you can on this subject, as well respecting the speech as the facts stated by me. I do not mean to enter the newspapers with Mr. Martin. But if any mistake has been committed to the prejudice of Colo. Cresap, it shall be set to rights in a new edition of the book now about to be printed. The book is too large to send you by post, but I imagine you may find a copy of it in Pittsburgh so as to see in what manner the facts are stated. I should express my regrets at the trouble I have proposed to give you, but that I am persuaded you will with willingness give your help to place this transaction on solid ground. It affords me at the same time the satisfaction of recalling myself to your recollection and of renewing to you assurances of the esteem with which I am Dear Sir Your most obedt & most humble servt.”

Thomas Jefferson

By all accounts, Chief Logan was, and still is, a domineering presence in the Ohio Valley region. In his lifetime, he accrued the mandatory respect needed to perform and maintain order in his hostile native lands. He was a profoundly skilled fighter (it was said he could throw a tomahawk at over one hundred yards and hit a bullseye!), navigator, hunter, and teacher for his family and tribe. He passionately, with all his demeanor and decorum, went through every step to prevent a bloodbath; that however, proved to be short lived because of the avarice and corruption of white settlers’ ambition for land and forestry. He cared seriously for all those who accrued a level of trust and seriousness with him. He adopted many people of color into his tribe and customs without question; he was intensely fierce and sagacious to all who were courageous and loyal enough to call him a friend. Irrespective of the reputation and habits of this Great Chief, it is irrational to dismiss the spirit and integrity of such a leader as Logan; he was devout, loyal, and fiercely protective of all those who came to him in friendliness and bravery. He was, indeed, the Red Spirit of All in the Ohio Valley and beyond.

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