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can be construed to state the real case whether the speech was written or spoken, he argued.

No reply to Logan is indicated when Gibson sought to vindicate Cresap; the charges against Colonel Cresap stood and yet stand in the speech. Theodore Roosevelt, always pronounced in opinion, reviews the whole ground in his "Winning of the West," Vol. I (see Appendix F, page 347). He says that Logan's speech can be unhesitatingly pronounced authentic. That is enough. Craig came to the same conclusion. He is vindicated; likewise Jefferson, et al. Jefferson's version of the speech is the commonly accepted one, though Craig gives the first form published, stating that he finds two copies in the first volume, fourth series of the "American Archives," and that the first copy appeared at Williamsburg, Virginia, in February, 1775. Jefferson has it:

I appeal to any white man to say, if ever he entered Logan's cabin hungry and he gave him not meat, if he ever 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 white man," I had even thought to have lived with you, but for the injuries of one man. Col. Cresap the last spring, in cold blood, and unprovoked murdered all the relatives of Logan, not even sparing my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This calling 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 his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one.

Now

In February, 1847, in the number of the "Olden Time" for that month (Vol. II, p. 49), Craig says in the opening of his long article on Logan: "The speech no matter by whom produced has been quoted and admired wherever the English Language was understood." This opinion was sixty-eight years ago and the time from delivery was seventy-three years, the words those which a heart-broken man would naturally say. who was Logan? A chief, one easily answers. Yes, a chief but with an English name. Logan is usually referred to as a Mingo. He was a Cayuga; the son of the great Shikelimus, or Skikelamy, who resided at what is now Sunbury on the Susquehanna, then called Shamokin, and to be distinguished from the present town of that name. Logan was called after James Logan, long prominent in the affairs of Pennsylvania under the Penns. Logan, the Indian, became a sot. After Dunmore's war he became more gloomy and melancholy, drank more and more, and exhibited symptoms of mental derangement. He went to Detroit, where he remained some time and evinced by his conduct that he was weary of life. He openly proclaimed life had become a burden. He said he knew not what pleasure was and thought it had been better had he never existed. In a state of despondency, he left Detroit, after a brutal assault on his new wife, while drunk, and on his way to the Miami was murdered.17 All the greatness of character of the man was wiped away in rum, which to be candid, is no respecter of races. Logan lives in the

17"Historical Collections of Ohio;" Henry Howe (1848), p. 409. See also Ibid., pp. 406-407, for two versions of the speech in parallel columns.

geography of the United States as well as in history and literature. Thanks are surely due to Jefferson, who preserved Logan's pathetic effusion.

"For many years," says Caleb Atwater, historian of Ohio, "on the farm of one Wolfe, near Circleville, the oak stood under which the splendid effort of heart-stirring eloquence was faithfully delivered by the person who carried wampum."

This is a new version. Where does Gibson come in? John Gibson was reputed to have married, in the Indian way, a sister of Logan. Whether she was slain with the others of Logan's kin or had died previously, historians do not say. Gibson and his brother George were natives of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. John Gibson was with Forbes at the taking of Fort Duquesne. Both brothers were in active service in the Virginia Line during the Revolution. George Gibson was the father of Pennsylvania's great jurist, John Bannister Gibson. In 1801, John Gibson was appointed by President Jefferson, Secretary of Indiana Territory, in which office he served until Indiana became a State in 1816, when he returned to Pittsburgh. He died at the residence of his son-inlaw, George Wallace, in Braddock, April 10, 1822. This dwelling is still standing. In it LaFayette was entertained in 1825. It is the large house adjoining the station of the Pennsylvania railroad to the east of that structure.

CHAPTER XXVII.

George Croghan, King of the Traders.

Of the pioneers in the region about Pittsburgh previous to the building of Fort Duquesne, none has received less local mention and none is less known historically here than Colonel George Croghan, trader, Indian agent of the crown at Fort Pitt. Croghan deserved his title, for he was of all the English traders the most energetic and influential in public affairs affecting the Indians. To understand properly his exact status, it is necessary to go back and look into the history of the Indian trade as the English traders developed it. The Five Nations, or Iroquois Confederacy, had been friendly to the Dutch from their first coming in 1614. and had begun trading with them that year at the first trading post established by the Dutch near the site of Albany. These Indians favored the Dutch in the commercial rivalry that ensued between Holland and France, and by the first treaty ever made with Indians in America, the Dutch by their politic treatment of the Indians and keeping all the covenants of this treaty, retained the friendship of the great Confederacy. The Dutch were naturally traders; business people of keen acumen. They not only gained the confidence of the confederated nations, but retained it, and they could depend upon their alliance with the "Magua" as they called these tribes. Had they not been thus favored and the Iroquois not stood between them and the more numerous and better armed French, the French would have pushed the Dutch to their fort, and to Manhattan Island. This would have raised and settled the issue of the French and Indian war years earlier, perhaps a century, and given to France the vast region west of the Alleghenies won by Great Britain in the peace of 1763. It is not remote to our history, this kind and sensible treatment of the Indians by the Dutch. Had it not been thus the whole history of the region of Western Pennsylvania would have been changed. What it might have been, in conjecture opens wide fields. As far off Onondaga and its Long House ruled the destinies of our region, so also the Dutch-Iroquois alliance must be treated as a factor. The French could not break through the Iroquoian wall; the English drove out the Dutch; the Iroquois transferred their friendship to the new proprietors; the French pushed onward to the West and Southwest; the English came over the Alleghenies; the clash came hereabouts; hence Fort Duquesne, Fort Pitt and Pittsburgh.

It was in 1664 that the Dutch surrendered their rights in New York to the English. The thrifty Hollanders then had almost the entire trade with the Iroquois. Then the Dutch trader proved an opportune interpreter for the English. The English divined the intent and purposes of the French first manifested in the attempt of the French to acquire the beautiful valley of the Mohawk. The Dutch, when the Mohawk braves had so badly needed firearms to cope with Champlain and the tribes he had armed, readily supplied the coveted weapons; then changed entirely

Pitts-36

the ages-long Indian method of fighting. The successful repulse of several French invasions of the Iroquois country followed. The Iroquois became more and more beligerent. They took longer and more frequent excursions; the council fires at Onondaga blazed as never before. Then when the English came they saw the advantage of a strong alliance. An agency was established among the Mohawks in time to fully protect the English interests. The English knew they must retain the confidence and friendship of the Iroquois. Nothing else could counteract French influence, for the French were incessant in their methods. They had continued for years to send out their missionaries, to build their forts and to establish their trading posts. They had penetrated the heart of the Mohawk country several times between 1665-1672, but they could not subdue that nation. Finally came Sir William Johnson as superintendent of Indian affairs for his Britannic Majesty; taking up his residence among the Mohawks, he became a power and soon was virtually a Mohawk. Thenceforth aggressive measures. Thence enters the superintendent's deputy at Fort Pitt, Colonel George Croghan, trader, interpreter, diplomat, loyalist, land-grabber; the most unique character in the history of the western country-living near Fort Pitt, a pioneer, fearless and tireless, concerning whom many pages of history have been written, should be written in any history of Pittsburgh; Croghan, the daring; Croghan triumphant; Croghan stripped of power and wealth, dying in obscurity.

Darlington, in his book known as "Gist's Journals," devotes many pages to Croghan's activities and tells all that he was able to learn of his life, but was not able to learn much of his early life. Darlington found that Croghan was a native of Ireland and received an ordinary education in Dublin and came to America in 1743 or 1744. He first resided five miles west of Harris' Ferry, later Harrisburg. Croghan's location was in what was subsequently East Pennsboro township, Cumberland county.

Charles A. Hanna says Croghan came to America in 1741 and was licensed a trader in Pennsylvania in 1744. Governor Morris, in 1755, wrote that he did not know what Croghan's education was, "which was in Dublin, nor his religious professions." Croghan's name first appears in the official correspondence of Pennsylvania in a letter to Secretary Peters, May 26, 1747. Croghan had his own method of spelling, especially Indian words. His letters are most curious and most interesting, for he was keen-sighted and prompt to act.

Croghan, who early earned the title "King of the Traders," was licensed, according to Darlington, an Indian trader in 1746. He had then maintained a home on the Susquehanna for three years. Conrad Weiser, on his mission from the provincial governor of Pennsylvania to the Indians along the upper Ohio, stopped at Croghan's place the second night out from Weiser's home in Berks county, distant therefrom fortyfive miles. The story of Weiser, rightfully told, is a volume in itself;

1"Christopher Gist's Journals, with Historical, Geographical, and Ethnological Notes and Biographies of His Contemporaries;" by William M. Darlington, Pittsburgh, J. R. Weldin Co., 1893.

likewise the story of George Croghan. They were in all respects but bravery and fidelity, antitypes and of different races; Weiser a German from the Palatinate, Croghan an Irishman. They were equally brave and equally faithful. Their relations with the Indians of the comparatively new colony of Pennsylvania, were cotemporaneous for many years and one or both were present in an official capacity at many or all of the treaties made with the Indians of their years. It has been told in Chapter X how Weiser's mission was faithfully performed and favorable results accomplished. Weiser was accompanied by some of Croghan's men with goods for the Indians. Weiser recorded in his journal, under date of August 30, 1748, that the preceding evening they had lodged at Coscosky at George Croghan's trading house. Coscoskey, variously spelled, was an Indian town on the Mahoning, about the present site of Mahoningtown,2 in Lawrence county, Pennsylvania. The usual Indian name for this town as used by Judge Agnew is Kushkusking.

As Croghan was first known as a licensed trader in 1746, it is reasonable to presume that he came immediately to the Ohio. The route was not through the Pittsburgh of to-day, but over the mountains from the Juniata valley at Kittanning Point, thence through the open ground, known as "the Clearfields" to the Kiskiminetas, to Chartier's Old Town, about the site of Tarentum, and thence across the country to the Ohio at Logstown, this town site just below old Economy. This was the Kittanning Path or main Indian trail to and from the Ohio (see Chapter IX, and Weiser's Journal, Chapter X). Even Gist, in his first journey, did not see the "Point" or the Forks of the Ohio as Pittsburghers know it.

From the time of Croghan's entry into the Ohio country until his death in 1782 he was a power among the western Indians and his whole life a thriller. His great standing among the Indians through his official connection gave him the opportunity to acquire vast tracts of land, the title to which he never doubted had been fully vested in himself by all the necessary procedure, but he was destined to die penniless, a disappointed and discredited old man. Croghan's coming to the Ohio antedated Washington's and Gist's by seven years. Celoron and his expedition from the governor-general of Canada did not come until 1749. Christian Frederick Post did not come until three years after Braddock's defeat. Croghan, therefore, was strictly a pioneer, and he may be called also a maker of history.

Parkman has much to say of Croghan. Milton Scott Lytle, historian of Huntingdon county, likewise, for Croghan left his home on the Susquehanna, in Cumberland county, and made himself a new abode at Aughwick, now Shirleysburg, in Huntingdon county. Incidentally, he got a few square miles of land in that region. A recent historian, Charles A. Hanna (1910), has also much to say of Croghan. Croghan was sent by Governor James Hamilton, of Pennsylvania, to Logstown in 1750, and wrote his excellency a letter from there under date of December 16, 1750. He also kept an accurate journal of this journey, and while at 2See Chapter X, ante, and “Life of Weiser;" Walton; also Post's Journals, Chapter XXI herein.

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