and elsewhere-the destruction of the Seneca towns in the lake and Genesee region of New York, by the army under Sullivan, in the autumn of 1779, and a similar excursion from Pittsburgh, by Colonel Daniel Brodhead, (who had succeeded General McIntosh in February, 1779,) at the head of six hundred men, during which he destroyed many villages of the Seneca Indians on the head waters of the Alleghany, ravaged five hundred acres of standing corn, and captured a booty of skins valued at three thousand dollars-these were events which tended essentially to relieve the valley of the Ohio, at least for a season.

Upon Brodhead's return to Pittsburgh, September 14, he found deputies from the Delawares, Wyandots, and the Maquichee branch of the Shawanese, with whom a conference was held three days afterwards. The only Indian names mentioned in the report of this council are Doonyontat, a Wyandot chief, Kelleleman, a Delaware, and better known as Killbuck, and Keeshmatree, the Maquichee or Shawanese chief, and his counsellor, Nimwha. On this occasion, the professions of amity were as ample and rhetorical as usual.

For a year or two, the settlements of the upper Ohio felt the beneficial effect of these events, but, as we shall see, the main body of the Shawanese, with their British and Indian allies, continued to scourge the Kentucky station, but not without a full retribution. We shall devote a separate chapter to the narrative of these Shawanese campaigns.

CHAPTER XX.

THE KENTUCKY CAMPAIGNS AGAINST THE SHAWANESE.

THE assassination of Cornstalk and his companions at Point Pleasant, in 1777, effectually concurred with other causes of irritation to inflame the Shawanese against the Americans, and for the residue of the revolutionary period the tribe was implacably hostile. There is some evidence that the Maquichee tribe were occasionally inclined to peace, but this exception, so far as it existed, was probably attributable to the influence of the Moravian missionaries, who interchanged visits with those chiefs living near the Muskingum. The tribe at large, irritated by the encroachments on their Kentucky hunting grounds, were determined to extirpate the infant settlements; and for this purpose the channels of the prominent tributaries to the Ohio offered great facilities. The canoes of their war-parties floated down the Scioto and the Miamis, and silently ascended the Licking and Kentucky rivers until within striking distance of the scattered stations.

At this time the Shawanese were divided into four tribes or bands the Maquichee, or Mequachake, the Chillicothe, the Kiskapocoke, and the Piqua. In the first tribe, to which the priesthood was confided, the office of chief was hereditary-in the others it was conferred according to merit. It is reasonable to suppose that the Shawanese living near Wappatomica, on the Muskingum, (if any remained there after it was destroyed by McDonald's party in the summer of 1774) and in the Scioto towns, which were only saved

from destruction by submission to Lord Dunmore on the approach of his army, were less prompt to renew hostilities. than the inhabitants of the more remote towns on the Little Miami and the Mad River. Cornstalk himself resided east of the Scioto River, on the right bank of Sippo creek, just above the junction of Congo creek, (now Pickaway township and county) while on the opposite bank stood Grenadier Squaw Town, so called from the residence of his sister, a woman six feet high and well proportioned; and notwithstanding the injuries inflicted upon the family of Cornstalk by the whites, it is probable that the Shawanese on the Scioto sympathized, in some degree, with the peaceful dispositions of the neighboring Delawares. This opinion is corroborated by the fact that all the retaliatory expeditions from Kentucky, during and after the revolutionary period, passed by the mouth of Scioto, and were designed to chastise the Shawanese bands who were seated in the Miami and Mad River valleys, and within the present counties of Greene, Miami, Champaigne and Logan. The principal villages in the Miami region were Chillicothe, standing near the mouth of Massie's creek, three miles north of Xenia: Piqua, memorable as the birth-place of Tecumseh, and situated on the north bank of Mad River, seven miles west of Springfield, in Clark county: and Upper and Lower Piqua, in Miami county, where the tribe at length concentrated in great numbers.1

In the spring of 1778, while Clark was mustering his expedition to the Illinois, Daniel Boone, equally noted as the pioneer hunter of Kentucky, was a captive in the Shawnee town of Chillicothe. He and twenty-seven others had been seized in February, while making salt at Blue Licks, and his

1) See Appendix No. VII, for further particulars of the Shawanese villages.

companions had been admitted to ransom or detained as British prisoners at Detroit--but not so fortunate was Boone. Although Governor Hamilton had taken a great fancy to him, and sought to obtain his release upon the usual terms, the Indians refused to part with the hero of the woods. They took him back to Chillicothe, where he was formally adopted as a son of the tribe, and consigned to the lodge of an Indian woman, in place of a deceased warrior. Until June, he adapted himself, with extraordinary address, to his new position, and so far won the favor and confidence of the Indians that he was suffered to accompany a party to the Salt Lick, in the Scioto valley, within the present county of Jackson. There they remained ten days and returned to Chillicothe, where Boone found four hundred and fifty warriors, armed and painted for an expedition against his own Boonesborough. Instantly, but silently, he resolved to escape, which was effected on the 16th of June, under the pretence of chasing a deer that bounded past the village. The weary journey of one hundred and fifty miles was successfully accomplished, but his flight seemed to have postponed the march of the war-party, for neither in June or July did they appear. On the 1st of August, Boone started with nineteen men, among them Simon Kenton, to look after the enemy. He approached their town on Paint Creek, but found it deserted, and meeting a small band of warriors, in full paint, marching southwardly, the suspicion flashed upon his mind that Boonesborough would be speedily attacked. They immediately retraced their course, and only reached the borough a day before it was surrounded by five hundred savages, with British and French flags flying and led by one Captain Du Quesne, a Canadian. A day passed in parley before the fort, and active preparation for defence within. On the 9th

of August, Boone and eight of the garrison consented to advance sixty yards into the plain for a further consultation with the British commandant, but this interview was rudely interrupted by an attempt to seize the Kentuckians-a treachery which was instantly checked by a fire from the alert rifles of the garrison, and the sudden and safe retreat of Boone's party within the walls. Of course the attack commenced immediately, and lasted for ten days, but to no purpose. On the 20th, the Indians were forced unwillingly to retire, having lost thirty-seven of their number, and wasted a vast amount of powder and lead. The garrison picked up from the ground, after their departure, one hundred and twenty-five pounds of their bullets.

The adventures of Simon Kenton, in the autumn of 1778, afford us another glimpse of the scene of Boone's captivity, and of other Shawanese villages. Colonel John Bowman was then meditating an expedition against the Shawanese villages, particularly Chillicothe; (Oldtown, Greene county,) and Kenton, accompanied by Alexander Montgomery and George Clark, undertook to explore the route to Chillicothe, and the vicinity and position of the town. This was effectually done, and all risk would have been avoided if the three spies had not yielded to the temptation of running off a drove of horses which they found enclosed in a pound. It was late at night, but the noise of the operation alarmed the Indians in the adjacent village. Kenton and his companions. were pursued, and although they reached the northern bank of the Ohio River with the stolen animals, yet, before its passage could be effected, they were overtaken, Montgomery killed and Kenton made prisoner, Clark escaping.

The Indians were greatly exasperated at their captive, abusing him as a "tief!-a hoss steal-a rascal!" and he