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St. Clair, Governor of the Northwestern Territory, associating with him, Winthrop Sargent of Massachusetts as Secretary, and Samuel Holden Parsons of Massachusetts, James Mitchel Varnum of Pennsylvania and John Cleves Symmes of New Jersey, as Judges of the territory.

On the SEVENTH OF APRIL, 1788, a party of forty-eight men, with General Rufus Putman at their head, disembarked at the mouth of the Muskingum River. They were the pioneers of the Ohio Company, and they had made their voyage from Pittsburgh in a vessel constructed for the purpose-the "Adventure Galley" afterwards called the "Mayflower." The aniversary of this interesting occasion will always be cherished, as it is often celebrated by the people of Ohio.

On the FIFTEENTH OF JULY, Governor St. Clair, who had arrived at Fort Harmar six days before, was formally received upon the site of Marietta-the "Seat of Government"-by the veteran Parsons, the Secretary and Judges of the territory, and an assemblage of inhabitants. Under a bower of foliage, contributed by the surrounding forest, the Ordinance of 1787 was audibly read-congratulations exchanged-and three cheers, startling the solitude of the streams, and the denizens of the wilderness around them, closed the simple, but impressive inauguration of Territorial Government beyond the Ohio.

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APPENDIX.

I.
(Page 21.)

FURTHER PARTICULARS OF THE ERIES, NEUTRALS, AND

ANDASTES.

THE testimony of the Jesuit missionaries confirms the opinion expressed in the text, that the Neutrals were one of several tribes, that suffered from Iroquois hostility. In 1654, Father Simon Le Moine visited the country of the Onondaga Indians, near the mouth of Lake Ontario. His party were received by some Iroquois fishermen ; and among them was "a Huron prisoner, and a good Christian," and some Huron squaws, for the most part Christian women, formerly rich and at their ease, whom captivity had reduced to servitude. "They requested me," the missionary continues in his Journal, "to pray to God; and I had the consolation to confess there at my leisure Hostagehtax, our ancient host of the Petun nation. His sentiments and devotion drew tears from my eyes: he is the fruit of the labors of Father Charles Garnier, that holy missionary whose death has been so precious before God."

At the principal Onondaga village, the missionary met other Huron captives, and names Terese, a good Christian woman, who had with her a young captive of the Neutral Nation-de la Nation Neutre-who became "the first adult baptism at Onondago."

In a conference with the Indians, Le Moine, who bore a message and various presents from M. de Lauson, then Governor of New France, delivered "a hatchet to each of the four Iroquois Nations, for the new war they were waging against the Cat Nation," with many other references to existing hostilities. "Finally," he adds, "by the nineteenth present, I wiped away the tears of all the young warriors for the death of their great chief Anneneraos, a short time prisoner with the Cat Nation." In reply, a captain of the Oneida Nation "produced four large belts, to thank Onnontio (the French Governor) for having encouraged them to fight bravely against their new enemies of the Cat Nation."

Another Missionary Journal, in 1658, alludes to the subjugation of the dreaded Cat Nation, as having been then accomplished. See Documentary History of New York, vol. i., pp. 30, 31, 32, 37.

A map published in Amsterdam in 1720, founded on a great variety of memoirs of Louisiana, and attached to a work called Receuil de Voyages, represents within the present limits of Erie county, and directly east of "Lac San dou ske," some villages of the "Eries-Nation du chat,” adding, that they were then destroyed (detruite). See French's Historical Collections of Louisiana, Part II.

There are many traditions among the Senecas of a tribe, by them called Kahkwahs, whose villages were west of the Genesee, and thence south to the sources of the Alleghany. We suppose them to have been the Andastes, who were vanquished by the New York confederates in 1672. H. R. School craft (Notes on the Iroquois, p. 318) has preserved the following Seneca tradition of the Kahkwahs. It will be seen that the writer identifies the Eries with the Kahkwahs. The terms may be synonymous, but if so, the seats of the Eries were certainly extended to the western extremity of Lake Erie. "My inquiries," Schoolcraft proceeds to say, "were answered one evening at the mission house in Buffalo, by the Alleghany chief, Ha-yek-dyoh-kunh, or the Wood-cutter, better known by his English name of Jacob Blacksnake. He stated that the Kahkwahs had their chief residence, at the time of their final defeat, on the Eighteen Mile Creek. The name by which he referred to them, in this last place of their residence, might be written perhaps with more exactitude to the native tongue, Gah-Gwah-ge-o-nuh—but as this compound word embraces the ideas of locality and existence along with their peculiar name, there is a species of tautology in retaining the two inflections. They are not necessary in the English, and besides, in common use, I found them to be generally dropped, while the sound of g naturally changed in common pronunciation into that of k.

"Blacksnake commenced by saying, that while the Senecas lived east of the Genesee, they received a challenge from the Kahkwahs to try their skill in ball-playing and athletic sports. It was accepted, and after due preliminaries, the challengers came accompanied by their prime young men, who were held in great repute as wrestlers and ball players. The old men merely came as witnesses, while this trial was made.

"The first trial consisted of ball playing, in which, after a sharp contest, the young Senecas came off victorious. The next trial consisted of a foot race between two, which terminated also in favor of the Senecas. The spirit of the Kahkwas was galled by these defeats. They immediately got up another race on the instant, which was hotly contested by new runners, but it ended in their losing the race. Fired by these defeats, and still confident of their superior strength, they proposed wrestling, with the sanguinary condition, that each of the seconds should hold a drawn knife, and if

his principal was thrown, he should instantly plunge it into his throat and cut off his head. Under this terrible penalty, the struggle commenced. The wrestlers were to catch their holds as best they could, but to observe fair principles of wrestling. At length the Kahkwah was thrown, and his head immediately severed and tossed into the air. It fell with a rebound, and loud shouts proclaimed the Senecas victorious in four trials. This terminated the sports, and the tribes returned to their respective villages.

"Some time after this event, two Seneca hunters went out to hunt west of the Genesee River, and as the custom is, built a hunting lodge of boughs, where they rested at night. One day, one of them went alone, and having walked a long distance, was belated on his return. He saw, as he cast his eye to a distant lodge, a body of the Kahkwahs marching in the direction of the Seneca towns. He ran to his companion, and they instantly fled and alarmed the Senecas. They sent off a messenger post-haste to inform their confederates towards the east, who immediately prepared to meet their enemies. After about a day's march, they met them. It was near sunset when they descried their camp, and they went and encamped in the vicinity. A conference ensued in which they settled the terms of the battle.

"The next morning the Senecas advanced. Their order of battle was this. They concealed their young men, who were called by the narrator burnt knives,* telling them to lie flat, and not rise and join in the battle until they received the war cry, and were ordered forward. With these were left rolls of peeled bark to tie their prisoners. Having made this arrangement, the old warriors advanced and began the battle. The contest was fierce and long, and it varied much. Sometimes they were driven back, or faltered in their line-again they advanced, and again faltered. This waving of the lines to and fro, formed a most striking feature in the battle for a long time. At length the Senecas were driven back near to the point where the young men were concealed. The latter were alarmed, and cried out, 'Now we are killed!' At this moment the Seneca leader gave the concerted war-whoop, and they arose and joined in battle. The effects of this reinforcement, at the time that the enemy were fatigued with the day's fight, were instantaneously felt. The young Senecas pressed on their enemies with resistless energy, and after receiving a shower of arrows, beat down their opponents with their war-clubs, and took a great many prisoners. The prisoners were immediately bound with their arms behind, and tied to trees. Nothing could resist their impetuosity. The Kahkwah chiefs determined to fly, and leave the Senecas masters of the field.

"In this hard and disastrous battle, which was fought by the Senecas alone, and without aid from their confederates, the Kahkwahs lost a very great number of their men, in slain and prisoners. But those who fled

A term to denote their being quite young, and used here as a cant phrase for prime young warriors.

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